Everytime I ran, I ran to you
by DemigodDaughterOfTheTARDIS
Summary: Spencer Reid is not just the nerdy genius that everyone on his team thinks he is. He has an entire secret life that no one knows about, except for those that live this secret life with him. But when his worlds collide, it could spell trouble...
1. Listening

**Disclaimer: The only things that I own are the band Undercover Nemesis (but not their songs), Ari Ross, Kat Simms, and the other members of the band.**

The BAU team had just finished up their latest case, this time in Catonsville, Maryland. They were going to be flying back to Quantico in the morning, and had just settled back into their hotel rooms for the night.

SSA Aaron Hotchner had just taken off his tie when there was a knock on his door. He opened it to see the team's youngest member looking at him nervously. Dr. Spencer Reid gave his boss an awkward wave.

"Reid." Hotch said. "What's up?"

"I was just, ah, wondering what time the plane was leaving in the morning." the younger man said nervously.

"I think we're boarding around ten, why?" Hotch asked, and Reid looked at the floor quickly, before looking back at his boss.

"Ah, a friend of mine invited me to come over and visit…" he said, trailing off. Hotch just smiled at the younger man.

"Go on, Reid. Have fun. Just make sure to be at the airstrip before the plane leaves in the morning." Hotch told him.

Reid's face lit up in a grin as he turned and walked away.

"Thanks, Hotch! I will." He said happily.

Reid was still smiling as he walked up to the stage door, elbowing his way past some of the groupies that were hanging outside the door.

He tapped the security guard on the shoulder, making the 300 pound, muscular man look at him, a scowl already pasted on his face.

"Look, pal, you ain't gettin' in." the security guard said, most likely having already told many people that.

He just gave the guard an awkward smile. "I'm, uh, I'm on the list." Spencer said. "Dr Spencer, ah, Re- Dr. Spencer Reid." he stammered. He had to stop partway through because someone had elbowed him in the ribs, but he managed to get enough of his breath back to wheeze his name out.

The man checked the list in his hands, flipping through the pages for a moment before finding it. He gave the young genius a smile and a nod as he opened up the door enough for him to slip through.

"Enjoy the show, sir." he said.

8888

 _Several months later..._

SSA Derek Morgan was just returning to his desk in the bullpen after lunch when he noticed Reid was still there. He couldn't help but laugh softly at the kid - half the time the team would have to remind him to do things like eat or go home and sleep because he would get so absorbed in paperwork or a case.

"Hey kid, did you eat?" Morgan asked, leaning on Reid's desk. Reid jumped in his seat, spinning away from the computer that he had been working at furtively.

"Sorry, what?" he asked, and Morgan gave him a Look.

"Out with it, Kid. What're you up to?" he asked, and Reid sighed. It was bad enough that he had jumped, but Reid was willingly working with his computer - that never happened. And even though the kid had only joined the team about 8 months earlier, Morgan had connected with him quickly.

"I'm ordering flowers." he admitted, and Morgan raised an eyebrow.

"For who?" he asked, intrigued.

"A friend of mine." was the quick reply, and Morgan snorted.

"Kid, people don't order flowers for people who are just _friends_." he said.

"Well I do." Reid said, turning back to his computer. Morgan just shook his head, smiling at the young genius, before going back to his work.

Once he was sure that Morgan was absorbed in his paperwork, Reid went back to his computer to finish placing his order.

 _That night…_

Good luck tonight, my crazy girl. Miss you.

Ari Ross smiled as she looked at the note attached to the flowers that she had received, before being interrupted by a knock on the door. There was no need for a name to tell her who they were from, the flowers themselves let her know.

She looked up as Kat stuck her head around the door.

"Hey, kitten." Kat said in greeting. "You ready to end this?" Kat crossed over to where Ari sat at her dressing room. "Damn, you look good." she observed.

Ari flashed her friend a smile as she got out of the chair. "Thanks, so do you."

It was true - for both of them. Kat was dressed in a sleeveless gray cropped turtleneck with ripped jeans, black buckled platform boots, and had pair of black ripped gloves on. She had dog tags around her neck, like always, and her fuschia hair was in its usual short cut. Her tattoos stood out in the lights backstage, and her dark skin glowed.

Ari, on the other hand, was almost the complete opposite, as far as physical appearance was concerned. Her long, straight hair was dark brown, making the streaks of blood red in it stand out even more. She wore a black skull-patterned tank top over a lace bandeau, with ripped black skinny jeans and silver-studded black high heels that laced up to the knee. She sat and absentmindedly played with the rings on her necklace as Kat did the finishing touches for their makeup.

"Alright, kitten." Kat said once she was finished. "After tonight, we have one final show in Charlotte. Then we get to go home."

Ari smiled at her best friend. The two of them had known each other since high school, and had started off the band not long after. Now they were about to finish off their second tour together.

"Let's do this." She said, and the women hugged before heading out to get on stage.

They took their places, just as the lights began to go up, and Ari could feel the energy of the crowd beginning to affect her. Her face lit up as the spotlights hit her, and she risked a look at Kat, who was about ten feet to her left. The other woman smiled back, and nodded before starting up the opening to their first song of the night.

"Hey hey!" Ari shouted, waving her hand over her head as the crowd shouted and cheered. "All you people out here tonight, I've just got one question for you:"

She took a deep breath as Kat got to the end of the opening, and then she yelled,

" _You listening? Are you listening?"_

The crowd went wild, and Ari smiled, exhilarated. This was what she lived for. The thrill, the _rush_ that came from a live performance.

" _Your eyes are closed, you're asleep and are you dreaming?"_

 **Please Review!**


	2. Ariel Reid

They had just finished up yet another tough case, and were on the plane back home to Quantico. Even though it was barely seven at night, most of the team was asleep, since they had been up for at least forty-eight hours straight while trying to find a missing child. Eventually they found her - thank everything for that.

 _Beep. Beep._

Reid's phone went off, but the young genius didn't even notice. He was fast asleep.

8888

It was a very groggy team that walked off of the plane two hours later. Dr. Spencer Reid yawned slightly before turning to look at the man who had quickly became one of his closest friends.

"Hey Morgan, you're sleeping at my place, right?"

Derek Morgan nodded. "Yeah, my place's still being fumigated." he answered.

"Okay, cool." the young genius said, and that was the last thing either one of them said until they got to Reid's apartment building.

The rest of the team was too tired to puzzle over Reid's choice of words.

8888

Nelson Stone looked up from behind the desk as the door of the apartment building opened. The elderly doorman smiled at the familiar face that walked in - but paused when he saw the rather large man following behind him.

"Evenin', Dr. Reid." Stone said, continuing to look at the tall black man suspiciously. "Who's yer friend?"

"Oh, uh, hi Mr. Stone." Dr. Reid said, giving one of his awkward little waves. "This is Derek Morgan. We work together, he's just staying for a night or two while his apartment is being fumigated."

The doorman smiled at that, relaxing as he learned that the other man wasn't any kind of threat. Not that he was being racist, it was just that Nelson Stone was very overprotective of any of the people who lived in his building - like the young Dr. and Mrs. Reid. And speaking of Mrs. Reid….

Nelson Stone stopped Spencer and Morgan right before they got into the rickety old elevator. "Dr. Reid, I almost forgot!" he said quickly. However, as soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Because it wasn't very often that he got to have a laugh at someone else's expense, and the look on Dr. Reid's face when he found out….

"What is it, Mr. Stone?" the young genius asked, crossing back over to the front desk. But the older man just smiled at him.

"How many times have I told you, boy?" Stone said, pretending to scold the other man. "Call me Nelson."

Dr. Reid just looked confused, but he smiled anyway. "Alright then…. Nelson." he said, and a small smile quirked on his face.

8888

Morgan waited a moment as Reid fumbled with the keys to his door. Then he noticed the confused look on the kid's face.

"What's up, Pretty Boy?" Morgan asked.

"The door was already unlocked." Reid said quietly. He carefully unlocked the door - having accidentally locked it the first time - and looked at his teammate. Morgan had a grim look on his face. Both of the men were now awake - maybe not completely, but more so than they were before.

With practiced ease, the two men drew their weapons and entered the dark apartment, checking each room in turn.

Reid checked the master bedroom and the hall closet before going to check the kitchen.

It was only when Reid saw the empty carton of teaberry ice cream sitting on the kitchen counter that he finally put two and two together.

8888

 _Morgan's P.O.V._

I had just gone into the living room to clear it when two things happened:

I heard Reid start racing towards me, yelling, "Morgan, stop!"

And a groggy voice spoke from the couch. "Babe, 's that you?"

I spun around quickly, instinctively aiming my gun in the direction of the voice.

That was when Reid burst into the room, his gun still in his hands.

"Morgan, drop your gun, now." he ordered. His voice was cold and had a deadly edge to it. I did as he said, but only because he was freaking me out too much for me to do anything but listen to him.

As soon as my gun was away, the kid was running for the couch. He practically collapsed on it, and that was when I was finally able to fully make out the outline of a person on the couch.

"You gave me a damn heart attack." he scolded gently, as he ran a hand through the other person's hair.

They hummed sleepily in response, trying to sit up. "Wha's goin' on, Spen?" they asked as they reached up and turned on a lamp sitting on the end table next to them.

My mouth dropped open in surprise when I saw the person that Reid was still clinging onto for dear life.

She was probably gorgeous, but at the moment she was still being smothered by a skinny genius so I couldn't exactly see her face. In fact, all I could see was her legs covered in a black blanket, and a bit of dark brown hair - so dark it was almost black - that had managed to sneak its way out from under the kid.

"Spencer Reid, let me up right now!" the woman said, trying to sound stern.

"No." Reid said, sounding more stubborn than I had ever heard him. "Not until you promise to stop leaving the door unlocked."

"Oh really?" she said. "And how are you gonna make me promise that, hmm?"

This was something I had definitely not been expecting from our boy genius. And it was also definitely something I wasn't planning on watching.

"Hey kid." I said, making Reid jump. He looked over his shoulder at me, and I almost burst out laughing at how red his cheeks were.

"Who're you?" the girl asked, finally sitting up right. Now that I could see her fully, I knew that I had been right. This girl was _smokin'_. She had dark eyes - that were still halfway closed from sleep - and brown-almost-black hair that went halfway down her arms. She wore a black tank top, and when she pushed the blanket off of her, I saw the black-and-pink plaid pj shorts she had on. The strangest thing about her, though, was her tattoos. She had a row of colorful flowers tattooed on each arm, which I definitely wasn't expecting from anyone who knew Reid.

"I'm Derek." I said, holstering my weapon. "Who're you?"

The girl looked at Reid nervously for a moment, and they seemed to have a silent conversation before she turned back to look at me. "I'm Ariel." she said nervously. "Ariel Reid."

I crossed my arms, slightly confused. "Okay…?" I said, wondering if she was the kid's sister, or… but that didn't make sense, considering how she had reacted to him…

"Morgan, Ariel's my wife…" Reid said, trailing off


	3. Meet the gang

_Derek Morgan's P.O.V._

"Hold up, man." I said, totally lost. "I'm sorry, she's your what now?"

Both of them looking at me - Reid was concerned, and Ariel looked like she was trying not to laugh.

"I'm Spencer's wife, Derek." Ariel said as she walked out of the room. A moment later, I heard clanking and rattling sounds that suggested that she was in the kitchen. "I'm guessing that he never mentioned he was married?" she called.

"Yeah, that he did not." I said, following Reid into the kitchen. I knew that I probably should've been mad at the kid for keeping this from the team, but at the moment I was really too shocked to be mad. Besides, Reid hadn't really been on the team all that long yet - maybe he just didn't think he knew us well enough yet.

Ariel was rummaging around in the cabinets, and pulled out three shot glasses before heading over to the fridge and pulling out a bottle.

My eyebrows shot up when I saw this tiny little speck of a girl pull out this big ass bottle of whiskey and pour three glasses of it. My surprise only grew when the kid grabbed his glass and threw it back like a pro.

"Tough case, babe?" Ariel asked as she downed her glass as well. Spencer just nodded as he refilled his glass.

"Definitely." he said, then pulled her closer and kissed her forehead. "I'm just glad you're back."

"Were you travelling?" I asked, and Ariel nodded.

"Yeah. For the last six months or so, actually." she said, then smirked. "Although I'm sure that Spence could give you the exact number of days."

"Six months, three days, nineteen hours, and thirty-one minutes." was all that Reid would say, and we both laughed as he blushed.

"So why were you traveling for so long?" I asked.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

This was the part that I was most nervous about. Spencer and I had been talking about this for ages - what we should do when his team found out about me. To be honest, I don't think that either of us pictured it happening like this.

"I work in the music industry." I said carefully. "I was out in LA for a while, and then I was going city-to-city with one of the bands that I work with."

"That's pretty impressive." Morgan said, and I nearly sighed in relief as he accepted the story without question.

"Thanks." I said, smiling at him before downing the rest of my drink. "So tell me about the rest of this case."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

The next day I drove Morgan back to the BAU since he had never gone back to pick up his car, and we talked some more about the night before.

"So how long have you two been…" Morgan trailed off.

"Married?" I asked, trying not to laugh. In the short amount of time that I had known Morgan, I had seen him go through many girlfriends, but the man still couldn't say the word 'marriage'. It was rather amusing, to say the least.

"About three years now. We were dating for four years before that." I admitted, then I remembered what my wife had told me before we left this morning. "By the way, Ariel wants to know if you wanted to come over for dinner tonight. A couple of our other friends are coming over, too - you don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought that since now you know about my _cantautore_ -" I was rambling now, and I knew it, I just couldn't figure out how to stop myself.

"Reid, man," Morgan laughed, cutting me off. "Sure, I'll come."

"Great." I said, as I pulled into a parking space. Then, as we got out of the car, I remembered something. "Hey, Morgan?" I said nervously.

"What's up kid?"

"Just… don't tell the team, okay? About Ariel, I mean." I stuttered.

Morgan stopped and looked at me, confused. "Why?" he asked. "If I was married to her, man, I'd never stop talking about her."

I just shrugged. "That's not how we work." I said. "We're really private people. Plus, I'm always worried that if an UnSub ever found out about her..." And while I didn't say it out loud, what I was thinking was, _And we really don't want Garcia to start doing background checks on Ariel. Who knows what she might end up finding out._

"Alright, pretty boy." Morgan said. "I can't pretend like I understand it, but I can agree to it."

8888

Luckily, we didn't get a single case that day, so I was able to head back home at around five o'clock that night. Morgan had said that he would be coming over around six, and I knew that the rest of our guests - although they were more like extended family - were most likely already at our apartment.

When I heard the music blaring from our apartment halfway down the hall, I knew I was right. I opened the door and was immediately assaulted by the smell of lasagna and the sounds of guitars. I walked into the living room to be greeted by Kat - although I was going to have to remember to call her Katerina whenever Morgan got here. She jumped up and pulled me into a hug, making me laugh.

I had actually met Kat before I had met Ari, and it was Kat who had been partially responsible for us getting together in the first place.

"Hey little kitten." I teased, laughing. Of course, that just made her glare at me, which made me laugh even harder. She smacked my shoulder, and I winced slightly.

"What's up, Spencer?" she asked as she let me go. "How's it going hunting down the big bad killers?"

"Its good." I told her. "Actually, one of my teammates is coming over tonight for dinner."

Kat raised her eyebrows at me. "Really? So you finally told your team about your other half, hmm?"

Ariel laughed as she came into the room. "Not exactly, Kat." Ari said. "It was honestly much more entertaining than that."

I went over and wrapped my arms around her waist, planting a kiss on her cheek as I stole a piece of garlic bread off of the plate she was carrying.

"Spencer!" she laughed as I took a big bite out of it. "Come on now, cut it out!"

"So? What happened, lovebirds?" Kat asked us. Ari rolled her eyes.

"Killer," Ariel began, and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the pet name she insisted on using, "Brought his coworker home with him last night, but forgot that we had gotten back the night before. Long story short, I got woken up by some muscle bound moron pointing a gun at my head."

"Hey now." I heard Morgan say from the doorway, "At least I'm a sexy moron."

Ariel and I laughed at that one, and Kat looked around us to give Morgan a quick once over. "I don't know." she said. "I think the jury's still out on that one."

"Damn, girl." Morgan responded, making his way over to the table. "That hurts. That hurts right here." he pointed to his heart, making us all laugh even harder.

"Right." Ariel said once we had all caught our breath. "Dinner's ready. Kat, can you get the lasagna out while I wake the sleeping beasts?"

"Sure." Kat said, grinning. "I'll do anything as long as I don't have to wake them up."

I kissed Ari on the cheek one last time before letting her go, but called her back when she was halfway out of the room. "Here," I told her, picking a pitcher of ice water off of the table. "You're going to need this."

My wife gave me a devilish grin as she took the pitcher from me. "Thanks lover boy."

I couldn't help but watch her hips as she left the room, and judging by Morgan's muffled laughter, he noticed. I gave him a fake glare, and he put his hands in the air. "Hey, kid, I'm not blaming you for that in the least - although I did not expect to ever see Dr. Spencer Reid checking out a lady. But damn, that girl is one tough mama."

"You have no idea." I said.

8888

Kat, Morgan and I were sitting at the table - which was really three card tables put end-to-end - when we heard screaming and cursing coming from the spare bedroom. Morgan went to jump out of his seat like he was about to run down the hall and see what was going on, but he stopped when we just busted out laughing.

Luckily, Morgan didn't even have to ask us what was going on because a second later, Gabe, Lee, and Finn came walking into the kitchen, and all of them were soaking wet. Ariel followed along behind them with an emptied pitcher and a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin.

"Damnit Reid, can't you keep a leash on your girl?" Gabe asked as he shook himself dry like a big puppy. Gabriel Geissler was a tall, buff black-haired guy with more tattoos than he could count and a heart of gold. Every inch of his skin was inked except for his face, and he was currently shirtless, since he was using his shirt to try and dry the rest of himself off.

"Like that would stop her." Finn snorted. Finn was Gabe's complete opposite, the clean-shaven 'good guy' of the group. He ran his hands over his face and through his hair, before spinning around and picking Ariel up by the waist.

"Put me down you big ape!" My wife shouted, even though anything anywhere close to threatening about her was canceled out by her giggles.

Then there was Lee, who just threw himself down in a chair. "Who're you?" he asked Morgan, already filling his plate full of food.

"Rude!" Kat said, smacking him upside the head. Lee responded with a middle finger salute, which earned him another smack from Ariel for his troubles.

"Hey, ladies!" the small Chinese man said, pretending to be angry. "Keep your hands to yourself - unless you wanna take this party to the bedroom."

Kat laughed. "Yeah, sure - or we could take this outside and I'll kick your lazy butt."

Morgan was looking kind of lost, and honestly I couldn't blame him. Our whole group could be a bit hard to handle.

"Sorry, Morgan." I told him. "This is Katerina Simmons, Gabriel Geissler, Finn Ryan, and Lee Voss. Guys, this is Derek Morgan, he works with me at the Bureau."

"Hey man." Gabe said. "Welcome to the crazy train."

Morgan laughed, and I felt a bit of the tension ease out of me now that I knew that the they would get along.

That's when things almost went wrong. "So does he know about Ari-" Lee cut himself off with a wince, and judging by the vicious look that Kat was aiming at him, I guessed that she had just kicked him under the table.

"Yes!" I said frantically. "Yes, he knows that Ariel and I are married."

Morgan looked confused for a minute or so, but shook it off. "So, if you don't mind me asking, how do you know each other?" he asked. "Pretty boy here's never mentioned any of you…"

I blushed as Morgan's nickname earned a round of laughter from everyone at the table.

"Pretty boy?" Kat snorted. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"Well _I_ think he's a _very_ pretty boy." Ariel said suggestively, and there was a moment of complete silence while my face turned bright red, before the room exploded with laughter.

"Okay, so you want to know how we all met." Kat said. "Well, the story starts in high school - at least for us. Spencer was already in college by then…"

 **A/N~ Holy cow! This story is so popular already! Thank you all so much for reading, favoriting, following, and** _ **of course,**_ **REVIEWING! Shout outs go to** **cbsunjl, ahowell1993, KirkSauber, tannerose5, , ripon, and tlcroft. If anyone has any questions about any of my OCs, or any suggestions to make to the story, please don't hesitate to review and let me know.**


	4. How they met

" _Okay, so you want to know how we all met." Kat said. "Well, the story starts in high school - at least for us. Spencer was already in college by then…"_

 _1994_

 _Pasadena, California_

Katerina Simmons was fourteen years old and looking for trouble. Practically raised on the streets, she had perfected the 'mess-with-me-and-I'll-mess-you-up" look young, and used that skill to her advantage, especially at this time of night.

It was around eleven thirty at night, and Katerina was finally heading home for the night, listening to Nirvana on her beat-up old Walkman that she had gotten cheap at a Goodwill.

The sounds of Kurt Cobain singing about social injustices and guns were suddenly drowned out by the sound of a kid yelling.

"Leave me alone, Chris! I didn't do anything to you, please!"

Katerina pulled her headphones off and started to follow the voices. Eventually she ended up going down a back alley and stumbling upon a sight that made her blood boil.

Three larger kids - she would guess at least college age, judging from the smell of cheap beer and their sense of superiority alone - had backed a scrawny little kid that looked to be around her age into the alleyway. One of them - whom she was guessing was Chris - was holding the kid up off of the ground by the collar, and punched the kid in the face, _hard,_ while she watched. The kid's head snapped back before he got himself back under control and lifted his head once more to look at the kid.

"That was for telling Professor Fitz about the paper that you wrote for me." he sneered.

The guy was rearing back to deliver another punch when Katerina decided that she had had enough. She had spent her life this far being picked on by her older siblings - all eight of them - and had quickly grown tired of it. So she wasn't even thinking of standing there idly.

"Hey!" she called out, pulling the gun that she kept in her waistband. People called it overkill, but it had saved her life on more than one occasion in the middle of the night. "Leave him alone!" she called out, trying to sound much older and much more intimidating than she actually was.

"Or what?" the biggest one asked, moving closer.

Katerina pulled back the hammer on the gun, smirking slightly as all four of the boys flinched when they heard the satisfying _click_ of the gun. "Or I'll kill you now." she said bluntly. "This is my turf, and I don't appreciate other people on it."

All three of the bigger guys seemed nearly frozen with fear - apparently they weren't used to _being_ threatened instead of _doing_ the threatening.

"Now _move!"_ Katerina yelled, and they all went running. Except for the scrawny kid, that is.

"I thought I said to move." she said, hoping that he would listen. All it took was one person blabbing for her to lose any cred she may have on the streets.

"You're not going to shoot me." the kid said, pushing his glasses further up on his nose. "If you were, you would've done it already." he said, and with that, she stepped out of the shadows she had been hiding in. She cherished the momentary shock on the kid's face, then nodded.

"You're right." she said, pulling the Nerf darts out of her weapon. "Besides, its not even a real gun."

The kid laughed softly at that. "Thanks for saving me." he told her softly. "I'm Spencer, by the way. Spencer Reid." he gave a little wave, and she smiled at him, tucking the Nerf gun back into her waistband.

"I'm Katerina." she said. "Did they say that you wrote a paper for them?" she asked. Spencer nodded.

"But you're like fourteen." she said.

"Thirteen, actually. And I'm doing better in the class than they are." he admitted.

8888

"Hold up." Morgan said, cutting Kat off in her telling the story. He looked around the table, raising an eyebrow at all of them. "Are you guys messing with me?" he asked them.

Kat looked confused. "No, why?" she asked.

"So you seriously went into a dark alley against 3 bigger guys with a _Nerf gun_?" Morgan asked, incredulous.

"Yup." Kat said, looking pretty pleased with herself.

Gabe snorted. "You should've seen her in Harlem." he said through a mouthful of pasta. "Now _that_ was insane."

"Oh god." I said, rolling my eyes. "What happened this time?"

"A couple of… _guys…_ got a bit out of hand." Ariel explained as we made our way into the living room with some drinks to hang out. "So Kat simply showed them the error of their ways."

I looked at her in surprise. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked worriedly. "Are you okay?"

Ariel gave me a smile as she squeezed my hand and slid next to me on the couch. "Because I knew you'd freak out. And besides, Miss Ninja over here had it all under control. We didn't even have to call in the big guns." she teased.

I relaxed slightly upon hearing that, but wasn't fully convinced until Finn spoke up. "Yeah, Spencer, don't worry about it. Trust me, you should be more concerned about what happened to those morons."

"I'm not really sure that I want to know." I muttered, which started another round of laughter.

"So that's how you met Katerina." Morgan said. I had noticed that he had picked up on the 'nickname rule' quickly - only people who had known Kat for a long time were allowed to call her that. "But what about the rest of you guys?"

"Well," I started, "I met they guys at the same time that Kat and Ariel did. Kat introduced me to Ariel when I was tutoring her - _someone_ needed help with Trigonometry."

My wife shot me a fake glare as she punched my shoulder lightly. "You're never gonna let that one go, are you?"

"Nope." I said, flashing her a grin.

"So does anyone else on the team know? About Ariel, I mean." Morgan asked me.

I nodded. "Hotch does, but only on paper. She's listed as my next-of-kin in my files. They've never actually met, though."

Morgan just nodded, accepting my explanation before quickly being drawn into a conversation about football by Gabe. The rest of the night passed quickly, with everyone going home around eleven.

Once everyone had left, Ariel and I just curled up on the couch, watching the New Doctor Who episodes that I had recorded while she was gone.

The Doctor had just comandeered Charles Dickens' carriage to go and save Rose Tyler when Ariel turned to me. "I think it went well tonight." she said softly.

I just nodded, too engrossed in the show to be really paying that much attention.

"So when do I get to meet the rest of your team?" she asked me, and it took me a second to realize what she had asked me.

"I thought you wanted to keep our life separate from the BAU?" I asked her. She just looked at me and shrugged.

"Yeah, but then tonight I noticed that Morgan kept looking at you strangely, like he wasn't used to seeing you so relaxed. I feel bad that you have to hide a part of who you are at your job. So I think that we should actually introduce them to our insanity, y'know?"

I studied her for a second, to make sure that she was being serious. "Alright." I finally agreed. "I'll introduce you to them.

 **A/N~ Hello, my lovelies! Thank you so much to everyone who favorited, followed, or reviewed! Once again, if anyone has any suggestions or questions, please don't hesitate to let me know!**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, ripon, KirkSauber** (of course its not too much to ask for!) **, tlcroft** (sorry, no criminal record here! Try again if you'd like, I love hearing theories!) **, and for reviewing!**


	5. Amelia

**A/N~ Warning for rather explicit mentions of suicide. If you are sensitive to this topic, please skip this chapter.**

It was about a week later when Reid didn't show up to work. The entire team was worried as they gathered in the conference room, but Hotch assured them that nothing was wrong.

"Reid called in earlier, said he needed to take a personal day. Since he has so much vacation time saved up, I saw no problem with it." Hotch explained.

JJ shrugged, before proceeding to present the case. "Three women in San Diego have been sexually assaulted and then strangled over the past four months…"

8888

Ariel came out of their bedroom that morning without even bothering to get showered or anything. Spencer should already have been at work, and this was the one day of the year where she allowed herself to be a lazy and depressed little girl.

"Morning."

Ariel jumped a bit before she realized it was just her husband. "Spence!" she scolded. "You scared me."

"Sorry." he said. "Coffee?"

"Yes please." she said, and Spencer handed her a cup of perfectly prepared coffee. "You

are forgiven for scaring me."

"Oh, well thank you for that." he responded sarcastically.

"I thought you had a case." Ariel said after taking a sip of her coffee.

"I did." he admitted. "But I stayed home because of today."

"Oh yeah?" Ariel asked her husband, trying to play innocent. "What's today?"

Spencer just gave her a look. "You know what today is." he chided gently.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I gave up the act quickly, putting down my mug to go and be comforted by my husband. It had been six years to the day now. Spencer was with me that night when I had come home to find Amelia's body. My sister had committed suicide that night by slitting her wrists.

I had never really been able to forgive myself for not paying enough attention to have seen what was going on.

"Ariel," Spencer said gently as he wrapped his arms around me. "There was nothing you could have done."

I spun to face him. "How can you say that?" I asked him. "Of course I could have done something!"

"No you couldn't have. Amy had depression, Ari." he said gently. "Only half of Americans that _know_ that they are having a major depressive episode get treatment, and even then they don't really get better, they only learn how to manage it. And Amy didn't know - or if she did know she never told anyone."

"So what am I supposed to do?" I yelled. "Just ignore it? Go on with my life and pretend that she never existed?"

"Of course not." Spencer said as he grabbed my wrists, pulling me to him. "You're supposed to write."

I stopped, confused. "What?"

"I know you, Ariel." Spencer said gently. "Better than anyone - except maybe Kat. That's what you do when you don't know how to deal with the world anymore. You write until it makes sense again."

Then he gently guided me to the table, where he had already set up a notebook and pencils for me, and he pushed me into a seat. "So go ahead and do what you do, okay?" he said. "I'm going to go to the store - we're almost out of milk. And… if you want, when I get home… we can talk."

I smiled up at my husband, trying not to cry. "Yeah." I said softly. "That sounds good."

8888

 _Reid's P.O.V._

It took me about two hours to finish shopping - we needed a lot more than just milk - and by the time that I got back to our apartment, almost three hours had passed.

But as I got out of the elevator on our floor, I felt happier than I had all week. Because already I could hear the faint sounds of guitar chords coming from our apartment.

I unlocked the door - and then unlocked it again, since I had accidentally locked it - and went inside, trying to make as little noise as possible so I didn't end up accidentally interrupting Ari.

" _And you will always be perfect_

 _You'll always be beautiful_

 _Our hearts, will never forget you_

 _You didn't belong here_

 _And it's become so clear why heaven called your name_

 _And it just doesn't seem right, was it really your time?_

 _Are we dreaming?_

 _We'll never let go of you_

 _Wish you were here, but it's becoming clear_

 _That Earth's just not the place for an angel like you_

 _And now we, must let you move forward_

 _Our love lies with you_

 _Our souls fly with you, Amelia"_

She finished by letting the guitar chords just trail off, and when she looked up I noticed that she had been crying a lot. I still pretended not to notice, though, because Ariel always hated to appear weak.

"You've been thinking that one up for awhile, haven't you?" I asked her as I put the groceries away.

She didn't respond, and I just kept putting things away until I felt arms wrap around my waist, making me jump.

"Yeah." Ariel said, laying her head in between my shoulder blades. "I have."

"It sounds great, Ari. Amy would have loved it." I told her honestly, spinning around so that I could hold her properly. As I took in the sight of my wife, I thought back to the other night when Morgan had come over for dinner. I remembered how confused he had looked when he first met Ariel - and then even more confused when he met all of our friends. I could see why he was confused, honestly.

I tended to try and stay far away from the spotlight at work, but with my friends I tended to get right in the thick of things. And then there was just the obvious differences in interests, which were noticeable even just by looking at our clothing. But we made it work, and I was so happy that Morgan had seemed to accept it with little to no problems.

Hopefully the rest of my team would be as understanding… but just in case, I decided to try and keep the two parts of my life from intersecting for as long as possible.

With that figured out, I turned my attention back to what I had planned for the day - keeping my wife from wallowing in guilt and grief for as long as possible.

 **A/N~ So the song in this chapter is called "Amelia," by Tonight Alive. I do not own the song, or anything else except for the plot and the members of Undiscovered Nemesis. Thank you to ahowell1993** ( I figured someone on the team had to have known about her) **, ripon** (thanks so much for the idea) **, jorvau5982** (She is definitely gifted, but she's not as much of a book-smarts person. But Ariel does have her own gifts, of course) **, KirkSauber, , tannerose5, opukata** (what makes you think that Ariel has a secret? XD) **, and vampire and inuyasha lover 13 for their reviews! You guys are all so amazing!**


	6. The Fisher King (part 1)

**A/N~ Hello sweeties! So, some people have been asking me when Ariel and Spencer are going to have a kid. My answer is not for a while at least. After all, Ariel hasn't even met the team yet, and they are both very invested in their jobs. Plus, I still have a lot of things planned for them before they actually get to that point. So now that that's all cleared up… back to the story!**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I had just finished packing when my husband came into the apartment and nearly swept me off of my feet.

I laughed as he picked me up in a hug, spinning me around. "Someone's excited." I teased.

He nodded. "Two weeks of nothing but sun, the strip, and you." he mumbled into my hair.

"Even though you've been banned from most of the casinos in Vegas?" I asked him, raising an eyebrow.

Spencer sighed, rolling his eyes, and I giggled. I just couldn't help it - we were both so excited. We had planned a week in Vegas - where Spencer grew up - and then another week in Pasadena - where I grew up - with no interruptions from either of our jobs, unless the end of the world occurred. Kat had left a week or so ago, so we were going to meet up with her in Pasadena, and then we would all fly back together.

Which, given our luck, would most likely happen.

8888

Roughly seven hours later, we were touching down in Las Vegas, and Spencer and I shared an excited smile as we got off of the plane.

"Ready?" Spencer asked me, and I winked at him.

"I think that the right question is: is Vegas ready for _us_?" I asked, and he laughed.

I reveled in the lightness that he had. Most of the time he seemed almost weighed down by all of the evil that his job exposed him to, making my husband appear older than he actually was. But now, under the neon lights that lined the Vegas streets, he looked as carefree as anyone else our age - even if his tan button-down shirt and red striped sweater vest made him look more like a teacher's assistant than an FBI agent.

I rested my head on his shoulder as we waited for our bags to come out. "Are you excited to see her?" I asked, and I felt him nod in response.

"Yeah. I'm actually a bit nervous." he admitted. "This will be the first time since we moved out to Virginia that I'm going to see her."

I lifted my head long enough to give him a look. "What are you talking about, 'I'? You want me to come with you, don't you?" I asked. I was confused - and honestly hoping that we weren't about to have a repeat of the same argument that we always had when it came to his mother. I had known about Diana's illness since we were seventeen and he showed up at my parents' house at three in the morning in the middle of a thunderstorm because his mom had been having an episode and wouldn't let him into the house.

"Of course I do." Spencer said, quick to reassure me. "I just wasn't sure if you wanted to come…"

I had to wait to answer him while he went to wave down a cab. After we had gotten our suitcases loaded in the back and were on our way to the hotel, though, I picked up the conversation.

"Spencer, I'm coming with you." I told him firmly. "There's no way I'm letting you do this alone."

He smiled at me before pressing a quick kiss to my lips. "I love you." he said softly.

"I love you too." I told him.

8888

The next morning we were up bright and early to go to Bennington. It took us all of five minutes to get dressed - Spencer in a dark short-sleeved polo shirt and khakis, and me in shorts and a pale green button down, with the sleeves rolled so that they hid my tattoos.

As soon as we got to Bennington, one of the doctors was coming over to us.

"I heard a rumor that you were here." she said.

I turned to shake her hand, but Spencer couldn't take his eyes off of Diana.

"How's she doing?" he asked, sounding like he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Schizophrenia is a lifetime illness." the doctor told us, and I nodded - I remembered when they had explained it to us the first time. "The meds stabilize the worst of her symptoms, but she still has bad days. What makes her most happy are her journals, and your daily letters."

I squeezed Spencer's hand when she said that, smiling at him. "See? I told you that those were a good idea." I teased.

Spencer spared a moment to give me a teasing glare, before turning back to the doctor.

"She is exceptionally proud of you." the doctor added, and I felt Spencer stiffen.

"She is?" he asked incredulously.

"Of course she is, you moron." I teased, bumping him lightly with my shoulder. "Why wouldn't she be?"

He just shrugged.

"Talks about you all the time, to anyone who will listen." she told us. "Staff, other patients. Her journals are filled with the cases you write her about." she laughed softly. "Calls them your adventures."

"Diana always did believe that adventure is all around you - as long as you know where to look." I said nostalgically. I remembered her telling me that on one of her better days.

"That's what happens when you're a professor of fifteenth century literature." Spencer said, smiling softly.

"She's going to be so excited that you were finally able to get here in person." the doctor said.

I felt Spencer's hand tense up in mine, and I didn't even have to look up at him to know that he was frowning.

"Maybe it's better if we just let her rest for today…" he mumbled, and both the doctor and I looked at him, confused.

"Rest?" I asked him. "Why on earth would we do that?" The doctor looked about as mystified as I was.

"Yeah." Spencer said. "We'll come back tomorrow."

He went to leave the hospital, nearly yanking my arm out of its socket as he dragged me with him, before turning back around and dragging me right back to the doctor.

"But, doctor - can you give this to her?" he asked, handing her a book. "It's Margery Kempe - her favorite."

"Babe, we should really -" I started, but Spencer was dragging me back out before I could say anything more.

By the time we got outside of Bennington's front doors, I had had enough. "What the hell was that?" I asked him, yanking my hand out of his.

"What was what?" he asked me.

"That shit that you pulled inside. Spencer, what is going on? You were so excited to come and see your mom, and now you don't want to anymore?" I asked him. "Is that it? You don't want to see her?"

By this point, we were starting to draw strange looks from the other people who were coming to visit.

"Ariel, can you keep your voice down please?" Spencer asked me urgently. He hated making a scene.

I, on the other hand, didn't mind it as much. "No, actually, I can't. Not until you tell me what's going on."

Reid sighed, running a hand through his hair before answering. "I just… I don't want to see her like that - especially if she's having a bad day."

My anger melted away almost immediately - although there was still a little part of me that was irritated that I had had to wake up at six that morning to not even see the person that we were getting up to see.

"Alright, Spencer." I agreed, kissing his cheek. "We'll put off seeing Diana until tomorrow. But not a day more, got it?"

"Yes ma'am." my husband sassed, and I threw my head back as I laughed.

"So what are we going to do for the rest of the day, hmm?" I asked as Spencer and I walked away from Bennington and back towards where we had parked our rental car.

"I have a few ideas…" Spencer mumbled, and I grinned slightly. That grin grew, though, when I looked up and saw how red he was blushing.

"Alright then." I said, trying to keep myself from giggling at how adorable he looked. "Lead the way."

8888

The next day we got to Bennington a bit later than the day before, so we hurried past the nurses station before the nurse on duty called us back.

"Dr. Reid! Wait!" she called out.

Spencer stopped, but he had to pull me back to meet the nurse. I was determined to get to see Diana today, whether he liked it or not. I'd go without him if necessary.

"Someone delivered this to the desk last night for you." the nurse said, handing my husband a small package.

"What? Who would've known that you were here?" I asked Spencer.

"I have no idea." he said honestly, and I smirked.

"Well you don't hear that one very often." I teased, and Spencer gave me a fake glare before turning his attention back to the package. He flipped it over in his hands, examining both sides of the package before opening it.

He looked at me in confusion after he pulled a smaller envelope out of the original one.

"Hey, don't look at me babe." I told him. "I only send you things while I'm gone, and if I was going to send something here, I would have addressed it to Diana."

He nodded, but still looked puzzled. "Then who…?" he trailed off as he opened the envelope and let a key fall out and into his palm. He turned it over in his hands for a second, before pulling a note out of the envelope.

I came up next to him to look at the note - I would have read it over his shoulder but already knew I was too short to make that work.

 _She will die unless you save her, Dr. Reid._ The note read. _Call Gideon. He knows._

We both stared at the note for a moment, utterly lost. Then I sighed.

"I guess this means that you're going back, aren't you?" I asked. I didn't even have to say where he was going - it was obvious.

Spencer nodded, kissing my forehead softly. "I'm sorry, Ari-bear." he said, using his stupid nickname for me (I still loved it, no matter how much I pretended otherwise).

"It's okay, Spence." I told him. "Duty calls." And I really was okay. He and I had both known that our schedules would wreak havoc on our personal lives, but we didn't care. We wouldn't have it any other way.

He turned to leave the hospital, but was only a few steps away when I stopped him. "I'm not coming with you." I said.

"What?" Spencer asked, turning to look at me.

"I'm staying here." I said. "It seems to me like whoever sent you that package is trying to make this personal, so I'm going to try my best to stay out of it." I explained. "Besides, I haven't visited Diana in ages. And this will give me a chance to go and play in the casinos without having to leave you behind." I finished, trying to make it seem as much like a joke as possible. I think something in my voice gave me away though, because Spence immediately crossed over to me and pulled me into a big bear hug.

"Be careful." he said softly, and I smiled at him.

"Now where's the fun in that?" I asked him. "Besides, I hear that Ari Ross is in town for a bit. Who knows, maybe I'll run into her."

Spencer smirked, chuckling under his breath. "Alright." he said. "Have fun, okay?" Then he kissed me one last time before heading for the door.

I watched until he was out of sight, and then turned around and headed for the common area where most of the patients gathered. I figured that I would spend a few hours with Diana before making my way to the strip.

But first…

I pulled out my phone and hit 2 on speed dial. It only took a few seconds for Kat to answer.

" _Hey chicadee, what's up?"_ she asked.

"Pack yourself a bag." I told her. "I think its time for the city that never sleeps to get a visit from Undiscovered Nemesis."

 **A/N~ Thank you all once again for reading! I love you all, and I'm so grateful to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, followed, or read this story! HUGE thank-yous to ahowell1993, opukata, and ripon for reviewing! Also - and here's a shameless bit of self-promotion - if you like stories that have OCs inserted into the storyline, check out my Angel series - Codename: Angel (Doctor Who), Codename: Lake (Criminal Minds/Doctor Who), and Angel in the TARDIS (Doctor Who).**


	7. The Fisher King (part 2)

_Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another. - Thomas Merton_

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

It took about five and a half hours for Kat to get to the hotel that Spencer and I had been staying in. I had booked another hotel for us after I called her - I didn't want anyone connecting Spencer to what Kat and I were getting up to. I was waiting for her outside when she got there - the Caesar's Palace Hotel was too swanky for us to go in, so we were changing at the little bed-and-breakfast type place that Spencer and I had been staying at. But Ari Ross and Kat Simms were just their type of rich - if not a bit more… _intense…_ than their usual guests.

"Hey chica." Kat said, as she kicked the kickstand into place before dismounting her old Harley and pulling the saddlebags off. "So what's going on? You didn't exactly explain why you wanted me out here with you - I thought this week was just for you and Spencer, anyways…"

I cut off her rambling with a quick hug. "I'll explain to you once we're inside, come on."

8888

We managed to make it up to the room that Spencer and I had booked without earning ourselves any suspicious looks, and for that I was immensely grateful. Although, considering that we were in Vegas anyway… they weren't as likely to be suspicious of things. "What happens in Vegas" and all that.

As soon as we got in the room, I locked the door and Kat threw the bags down on the king-sized bed in the middle of the room.

"Okay, so spill." Kat said. "What happened to make you two cut your week in paradise short?"

I sighed as I opened up one of the bags, trying to figure out what to wear. Luckily, I had left a few outfits in Pasadena the last time we were up there visiting family. So Kat had been able to just grab some of my stuff from her parents' house in Pasadena before hitting the road.

"Apparently there's some new baddie who is trying to drag Spence and his team into his sick game." I told her. "We were at Bennington, visiting with Diana, when one of the nurses gave Spence an envelope that someone had delivered for him."

Kat was hooked - she had always loved mysteries. "What was in it?" she asked, as she started to pull different pieces out of her bag to wear.

I smirked. "Sorry, babe." I told her. "That's classified."

Kat groaned before throwing a pillow at my head. "Ugh. I hate you."

"I know." I said cheerfully, stripping out of my shorts and blouse before starting to pull on my 'costume'. "Can you help me with this?" I asked, motioning to the dress that I had pulled out. Kat nodded before coming over and starting to lace it up. Luckily, after years of practice with slipping into and out of different costumes, the actual 'dressing up' process didn't take that long, but by the time we were done, Kat and I still looked like ourselves - only ourselves in strange outfits. I wore a sleeveless black mini dress with a corset back, with black fishnets and four inch heels, with a burgundy cropped leather jacket overtop of it - it was a bit cliche, but it worked. Meanwhile, Kat had picked out a spaghetti-strap high-low top in army green, with black shorts, black fingerless gloves, and knee-high black combat boots with a platform heel.

"Right." Kat said. "Now for the hard part." She pulled all of the other stuff that we would need out - makeup, hair supplies, and jewelry. Lots and lots of jewelry.

By the time we were completely finished an hour later, neither of us were recognizable - unless you looked very, very closely or knew us personally. My hair had been straightened, and Kat had applied black eyeshadow and a deep red lipstick to my face. I had given her the same look, only with a deep purple lip instead of a red one. The last thing to go on was jewelry. We went with the standard - rings, chokers, and a few chains - before going for the piercings. When we first started out, we had both wanted to get piercings, but then agreed that they weren't very practical. So we settled for the next best thing - fake piercings. I normally used a nose stud, a lip ring, and several different cartilage piercings, while Kat usually just went with an eyebrow stud and regular earrings.

Once we had finally finished with the daunting task of making sure that Ariel Reid and Katerina Simmons were unrecognizable, we threw on a couple of oversized coats and packed up our stuff before heading to the hotel that I had booked for Ari Ross and Kat Simms.

When we pulled up in front of the Caesar's Palace Hotel, Kat gave me an evil grin. "I can see why you picked this place, Ari." she said. As a rule, all of the members of Undiscovered Nemesis tried our best to not be assholes - unless someone really deserved it. So if a reporter is being a rude asshole, then yes, we're going to say something about it. But we try not to cause trouble just for the sake of causing trouble.

But I have always loved to stir people up just a bit. So booking us a room in one of the swankiest hotels in Vegas - where red carpet stars come to stay - and showing up covered in tattoos and piercings, just to see the looks on peoples' faces?

Yeah, that was definitely something that I would do.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

"The path to the end

Begins at his start.

To find her first calm

Her long broken heart.

She sits in a window

With secrets from her knight.

Is it adventure that keeps him

Out of her sight."

"Is it another puzzle?" Garcia asked me.

"It's a riddle."

Began at his start… his" An idea was starting in the back of my head, I just couldn't figure it out...

"The youngest holds the key… sits in a window… secrets, adventure…" it was starting to come together, and what little I had so far was making me nervous. But I didn't want to say anything yet to Garcia, not until I was absolutely sure. "Secrets from her knight. Sits in a window."

I hurried over to the table and picked up one of the photos that had the original poem on it. "Would it be night, but always clear day. That'd be - that'd be bright lights."

I looked up from the picture as I remembered when Ariel and I had received that package at Bennington. "It's never night in Las Vegas." I said, putting it all together.

"Excuse me?" Garcia asked, but I ignored what she said in favor of going over to the phone and rapidly dialing.

"I - I need to be connected to the field office closest to Las Vegas, Nevada immediately." I said. Within seconds, someone answered, and my panic went away a little. "Hi, this is Dr. Spencer Reid with the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico. Look, I need my mother picked up and brought to Virginia in protective custody as soon as possible."

They asked me why, and I hurried to explain. "We're searching for an UnSub that shot one of our agents today, and I think he might know my mother, and I believe that she may be in danger."

"Alright." the man on the other end said. "Can you tell me where she is?"

"Yes." I said, then took a breath. I knew that Garcia was still in the room, and was honestly afraid of how she would react to this information, but at the moment I didn't care. "She's at the Bennington Sanitarium in Las Vegas. Her name's Diana Reid. She's a… patient there."

"Alright, I'll send some agents over right away." he said, before hanging up the phone.

I breathed out a sigh of relief, then steeled myself to make it past Garcia for right now. I would explain everything to her later, I decided, but first I had to give Ariel a head's up and let her know what to expect.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

It was another day before I heard anything from Spencer. Kat and I were at a casino - I honestly wasn't even sure which one - when he called.

"Hey." I said, holding the phone with my shoulder so that I finish off the round of roulette. I lost, so I took my remaining chips and backed away from the table, attempting to get away from the groupies that had formed around Kat and me as well. I quickly gave that part up as a lost cause, though. There was no shaking them, no matter how hard I tried.

"What's up?" I asked. Hopefully, Spencer would pick up on the fact that I wasn't really able to talk. We had had situations like this happen before, so my husband could usually pick up on it quickly.

"Hey Ari-bear." he said. "Can you talk?"

I smiled - he had picked up on it almost immediately. I gave a fake laugh, before saying "No way! So then what happened?" As dramatically as possible. I had learned not too long after our first tour how to hide what was really being talked about.

Spencer laughed slightly, apparently I was amusing him with my little code. "Agents from the FBI office closest to Vegas are coming to pick up my mother. Can you please go and meet them there? I wouldn't ask, but you know how scared she is of flying."

"Of course they did." I said, rolling my eyes for the benefit of the people who 'just happened' to be eavesdropping. Unfortunately for me, that number was still a lot of people. "What time is the party?" I asked as I scanned the room, looking for Kat. I was going to need help if I was going to pull of a disappearing act here.

"I don't know." he said. "I placed the call about five minutes ago. They'll probably be there within the hour."

I sighed, both with relief and exasperation - exasperation at my husband, and relief because I had finally located Kat in the crowds. She was over at the bar getting a drink.

"Okay." I told Spence. "I should be there soon."

Spencer sighed in relief. "Thanks. I love you."

"Same to you." I said before hanging up. As soon as I did that, I made a beeline for Kat.

"Hey, I need to get out of here." I told her. Luckily, she hadn't actually been drinking any alcohol yet, so I didn't have to waste any time repeating myself.

"Why? What happened?" she asked.

"Remember that thing I was telling you about this morning?" I asked her, and she nodded. "Well apparently it's more serious than we thought. The man wants me back home ASAP." I told her. "The man" was the band's nickname for Spence - Gabe had come up with it after first meeting him, saying that he looked like 'the white man' that a lot of musicians talked about in their songs.

"Okay." Kat said. "Do you need a distraction?"

"Yeah. A distraction would be nice right around now." I admitted.

Kat smirked. "No problem chica. I've got all the distraction that you need. Take my bike, okay? It'll get you outta here faster, and the bags are already there anyway."

"How're you going to get out of here then?" I asked, but she just waved me off.

"Don't worry about it. I'll catch a cab or something."

8888

It took me less time than I thought it would to make my escape, and so I had time to stop and change back into my regular clothes before getting to Bennington. Luckily for me, because as soon as I got there I could tell that I was just in time.

Two government agents were already escorting Diana to a car when I arrived, and she appeared to be fighting them to the best of her ability. She stopped when she saw me, though.

"Ariel!" she called out, relieved. "Ariel, get these _fascists_ away from me."

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside." one of the agents told me.

"Excuse me?" I asked, crossing my arms. "I don't think so. If anything, I'm going to have to ask you to get your hands off my mother-in-law."

The two agents looked at each other, having a silent conversation. Then they looked back at me. "In that case, you're going to have to come with us as well, ma'am." the first agent said.

"Fine." I said stiffly. "Now let her go." Luckily, they did as I asked - I wasn't sure how much longer Diana was going to accept being manhandled like that. I put my arm around my mother-in-law, saying, "Come on, Diana. We're going to go see Spencer, okay?"

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

"She's ok - your mom." Garcia told me awhile later. I had been just sitting at my desk, hoping that nothing happened to either of them - my mother or my wife - before the agents got to them. "Agents picked her up. She's flying here right now.

"I forgot - she always used to read me this poem." I said, looking at the evidence in my hands. "It's funny, huh?"

"Funny?" Garcia asked.

"I should've realized sooner. No one knows things like the fact that JJ collects butterflies except for me. People tell me their secrets all the time. I think it's cause they think that I don't have anyone to betray them to… except my mother. I… I tell her pretty much everything."

"I don't think anyone would mind." Garcia said, attempting to reassure me.

"Do you know that I write her a letter every day?"

"That's nice."

I just smiled. "It depends on why I write her."

"What do you mean?" Garcia asked.

I smiled again, but on the inside I was terrified. Terrified that, by telling Garcia this about me, she might not care as much anymore. That she might think that I was as horrible as I did. "I write her letters so I won't feel so guilty about not visiting her." I explained, keeping my eyes focused on the evidence bag in my hands. "Did you know that schizophrenia is genetically passed?" I asked, and then I risked actually looking at her. I was so relieved when I didn't see hate or disgust in her eyes. Instead, I saw… love. Acceptance. Sympathy. The kind of things that I usually saw in my wife's eyes.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

The flight back to Quantico was one of the most trying experiences of my life. Not only was there Diana's fear of flying to contend with - which wouldn't have been so bad if it was the only thing - but there were also the agents to deal with. They, apparently, had met my husband briefly, and so every once in awhile I would overhear a comment about how I was 'out of his league' and 'not his type' and other things like that. So by the time that the flight was over, I had had enough of their crap.

Right before the agents from Las Vegas handed us over to some agents from Spence's office, I turned to look at them.

"Thank you, agents." I told them both. The taller one smiled and nodded at me, while the shorter one - and the one who had been making 95% of the comments - spoke up.

"Not a problem ma'am." he said. "And the next time you're in Las Vegas, just let us know if there's anything that we can do for you."

I smirked - he had just given me the perfect opening. "Well, there is _one_ thing that you could do…" I said, smiling at him.

"And what's that?" he asked.

"Stop making inappropriate comments about married women. And you can stop commenting about how Dr. Reid doesn't 'deserve' me, because that's where you are utterly wrong." I snapped. "That's what you can do for me - you can shut the hell up. Because let me tell you, if my mother-in-law hadn't needed me during the flight, I would've shut you up _ages_ ago." With that, I turned and smiled at the agents who were going to take us to Spencer. "We don't have any luggage or anything, so if you wouldn't mind, could we get going please?"

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I was over in the breakroom making my fifth cup of coffee for the day when I heard my mom's voice.

"That's why you're so skinny, you know?" she said, and I turned to see both her and Ariel smiling at me. "Too much coffee."

"Thanks a lot, guys." I told the agents who had gotten them from the airport. "I've got them." They nodded and walked off, and I walked over to the two women in my life.

Ariel wrapped me in a hug, while Mom started scolding me. "You know I'm terrified of flying." she started. "If Ariel hadn't been there…"

I couldn't help but smile a little despite the seriousness of the situation as I hugged my wife tightly, taking a moment to just breathe in her scent. She smelled like apples, jasmine, and something that I still hadn't been able to identify after seven years. "I know Mom. I'm sorry."

"Well then why did you have those fascists arrest me?" she asked, and I could practically feel Ariel rolling her eyes.

I laughed softly for a second before explaining, "Mom, they're not fascists, and you were not arrested. I'm trying to protect you - both of you."

"By forcing me to do the one thing that frightens me more than anything else?" she asked.

I decided not to answer that. "I need to show you something." I said, finally releasing Ariel from my arms and holding her hand instead. I refused to let go of her - Elle being shot had shaken me more than anything else, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to let either my mother or my wife out of my sight until this case was over. "Follow me." I said, leading them to the conference room.

 **A/N~ So this update is a bit early! But don't worry, I should still have another chapter up on Tuesday. Anyways, thanks to ahowell1993, tlcroft, and Jem Juliette Jewels Jade for their reviews! And also, just a bit of advice to the people reading - if you actually read the authors notes - we tend to update faster when we get more feedback. Just a little something for you to puzzle over...**


	8. The Fisher King (part 3)

_Ariel's P.O.V._

Diana was walking behind us, so that gave me the opportunity to interrogate my husband.

"What's going on, babe?" I asked. "I mean, not that I'm complaining, but you haven't let go of me for even a second since I got here."

Spencer sighed. "Elle got shot." he said.

I was shocked. "Is she alright?" I asked. "Well, I mean, of course she's not alright, she's been shot. But she's…?"

"She's alive, yeah." Spencer reassured. "She's in the hospital now - Hotch and Gideon are with her."

I sighed in relief. "Thank goodness." I said softly, now understanding why my husband refused to let me out of his sight. I had never met SSA Greenaway myself, but I had heard so many stories about her that I felt like I knew her - just like the rest of the team. I didn't know any of them, either, but sometimes it felt like I did.

We walked into the conference room, and Diana started to look around.

"This is where you work?" she asked.

"This is where we meet. Uh, my desk, you can see it, it's right out there in the bullpen area." Spencer told her.

"The table's round." Diana noted, and Spencer smiled. I went up on my tiptoes for a moment to kiss Spencer on the cheek before I slipped away from him, moving to examine a large piece of paper covered in sets of numbers.

"Yeah, just like I wrote you in my letters."

"Yes, just like you wrote in your letters." Diana agreed, but there was so much ice in her tone that I nearly shivered.

"Diana, I told you what happened on the plane, remember?" I asked her, but she ignored me. I had tried to explain to her on the plane ride that we had been about to come and see her when Spencer got the mysterious package, but I don't think that she really believed me.

"Dr. Jessen gave me the book you brought. Marjorie Kemp." she continued.

"She's your favorite." Spencer offered weakly.

"That particular book is one of her minor works." she said. Then she moved over to one of the corkboards on the wall, grabbed ahold of an evidence baggie, and ripped it off of the wall.

Spencer rushed over. "Mom, no! Don't ta - don't." he said quickly, taking the evidence out of her hands. "You can't grab stuff off the board. This key is evidence!" He said.

"Spencer!" I rebuked him gently, giving him a look. He calmed down before saying.

"Mom, the UnSub that we're looking for… the - the bad guy… knows things about my colleagues' personal lives, things that only you - or Ariel - would know. Ariel didn't tell anyone, so that leaves you. Do you write about them in your journals?" he asked.

She looked mad. "My journals are none of the _government's_ business!" she shouted, sending furtive looks at the walls.

"I'm not the government, Mom." Spencer said, trying to calm her.

"Well this certainly looks like a government office!" she said, starting to yell again.

Spence took a deep breath before getting serious again. "Mother, do you write about my colleagues' personal lives?"

Diana put her head in her hands, and I moved over, going to put my arm around her when she shook her head. "Why did you bring me here, Spencer?" she asked, sounding distraught.

Spencer hesitated for a second before making up his mind and continuing with his questions. "I need to ask you some questions about a man I think you might know. A bad man. He's killed some people, and he's - and he's holding a girl hostage."

Diana looked at him with such a put-out look on her face that I honestly had to work to keep from laughing - I just couldn't help myself. "You think I know someone like that?" she asked.

"Will you just watch the tape and see if he sounds familiar?" he tried, and Diana nodded. She sat down at the table, and Spence started up a recording of who I assumed was the UnSub.

" _I had to make sure I had your complete attention."_ Came the man's voice. Diana looked like she recognized it almost immediately. " _I assure you, you will all understand in the end why it must be this way. You might even thank me."_

Spencer paused it there, and he looked at Diana, noticing the shocked look on her face.

"You do know him?" he asked hopefully.

Diana nodded slowly. "I'm sure it's… Randall Garner." she said.

"Randall Garner." my husband repeated.

"He was with me at the hospital." Diana explained. "He's a very emotionally disturbed man."

Suddenly, a very not-FBI looking woman walked into the room. Her almost white-blonde hair was crimped, with orange streaks running through it, and she wore a black long-sleeved shirt with a bedazzled peace sign, long, intricate earrings, and black cat's eye glasses. "Reid," she said immediately. "I got to the end of the IP string. Sir Kneighf, the Fisher King, his name is Randall Garner." she said.

"He's Rebecca Bryant's biological father."

"Sorry." I said, and the woman - whom I assumed was Garcia - spun to look at me. "But who's Rebecca Bryant?"

"She's - she's a missing girl that is involved in the case." the woman said, looking at me in confusion. "Reid, who is this?" she asked.

I stiffened a little at the tone that she had. While I would be one of the first to say that she had every right to be surprised by my being there, that didn't mean that she got to talk to my husband that way. "I'm Ariel." I told her, moving forward and holding out my hand for her to shake. She took it reluctantly. "Ariel Reid. I'm Spencer's wife."

"Wife?" she echoed, sounding equal parts confused, ecstatic, and just plain surprised. "Reid has a wife?"

"Yes, he does." I said, confused. I knew that Spence's co-workers wouldn't know about me, but I never guessed that this would be their reaction - that they would be at all skeptical of our relationship. "Got a problem with that?"

"Ariel, be nice." Spencer scolded, wrapping his arms around my waist. "Garcia, this is my mother, Diana." he said, gesturing to where Diana was sitting, watching us with an amused expression. "And my wife, Ariel."

"But - you can't have a wife." she said, confused. "Where's the ring?"

I nearly laughed at that - based on all of the stories I had heard about Penelope Garcia, I should have known that that would be what she would have asked. Although, judging by the way she was eyeing me, I knew that her interrogations were far from over.

"Oh, that?" Spencer asked, reaching down his shirt to pull out the chain that he kept his ring on. He pulled the chain from around his neck and took the ring off, placing it on his finger where it belonged.

"That's much better." I said, taking ahold of his hand to examine it.

8888

 _Garcia's P.O.V._

"I can't believe she's real." Mrs. Reid said. She was pacing back and forth across the room, while Reid and I worked. Meanwhile, Ariel was sitting in one of the chairs, scribbling something down on a notepad.

I wasn't sure what to think of Reid's wife just yet. I was honestly hurt more than anything - how could my Boy Genius have been married all this time and never tell us? So for the moment, I wasn't talking to him outside of what needed to be said, since we still had to work together. I hadn't even had a chance to tell Derek yet! He was going to flip out even more than I had when he found out.

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"Whenever he talked about Rebecca, he never said she was his daughter." Mrs. Reid explained. "He said all his children died in the fire. He spoke of _a_ Rebecca, more in the abstract. I really thought she was a metaphor, not an actual human being. An ideal."

"A grail." Reid said, and Ariel looked up from whatever it was that she was doing to listen for a second before going back to her scribbling. "He thinks he's the Fisher King."

Just then, Derek and JJ walked into the room. "Who does?" Derek asked.

"Randall Garner, our UnSub." Reid answered.

"He believes you're all modern-day knights of the round table." Mrs. Reid spoke up. Derek looked at her in confusion for a moment, so Reid went over to introduce them.

"Uh, Derek Morgan, this is my mother, Diana Reid." he said quickly.

"It's your mother?" Derek said, sounding a bit more hostile then he probably intended. "Ma'am, it's uh… it's a pleasure to meet you." he said. Then Ariel spoke from her corner.

"And what about me, huh?" she asked, standing up. "Don't I get an introduction?"

I was about to say something, but Derek cut me off. "Oh hush up, little one." he said, smiling at her and going over to give her a hug. "Secret's out, huh?"

She laughed, giving him a hug in return. "Yup." then she went over to JJ and held out her hand, saying, "Hi, I'm Ariel. I'm Spencer's wife."

JJ said something to her then, but I didn't hear it. Instead, I was looking at Morgan in shock.

"You knew?" I whispered, and he looked at me strangely.

"What, about Ariel? Yeah, I knew. So what?" he said.

"So what? What do you mean, so what?" I started to rant. I would've said a lot more if Hotch hadn't come into the conference room right then.

"So where are we on catching this son of a bitch?" he asked. Then he caught sight of Ariel, and I could have sworn that he gave her a slight smile. "You must be Mrs. Reid. It's nice to finally meet you, your husband has told me a lot about you."

She smirked. "Oh really?" she said, giving Reid - her husband - a teasing look. "Well its nice to know that he told _someone_ about me."

That was when I was about ready to lose it. I was still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that our boy genius was married at all, but then there was the fact that Derek and Hotch both knew! But for the moment, I had to push my anger at my babies to the back of my mind - we had a case to solve.

"I've rechecked all of the clues." Reid said as he sat down. "There's nothing that points to an address."

"The adoption records for Rebecca listed an address of the fire, so I made a call to Nevada, and its vacant. No one ever rebuilt." JJ pitched in.

"Nevada?" Hotch repeated. "So we don't even know what state he's in?"

"I'll search the tax records, see if he owns any property." I offered.

Then Mrs. Reid broke in. "Excuse me."

Reid got up from where he was sitting, as did Ariel. "Mom, we're-" he started, but she cut him off.

"Just before the agents got me from the hospital," she said, digging around in her purse, "a man delivered this to me." She pulled out a photo. "It's a photo of a house with an address on the back."

"Shiloh, Virginia?" Ariel said, walking over to her mother-in-law. "That's only about ten miles from here."

Hotch looked at the picture for a second before making a decision. "Alright." he said. "Let's go."

The team filed out of the room, leaving me behind with JJ, Mrs. Reid, and Ariel.

"Spence." Ariel called out, right before her husband left the room. He turned and walked back over to her, and she pulled him into a tight hug, kissing his cheek gently. "Be careful, alright? Because if you come back to me hurt, I'm going to be seriously pissed off." She finished by giving him a glare that quickly turned into a smirk.

His response was what shocked me. "Yes, ma'am." he said playfully, pulling her in for one more kiss before leaving the conference room and jogging towards the elevator.

I just stared at her in shock for a moment. In all the time that I had known Dr. Spencer Reid, I had never once seen him act like that - all playful and adorable - with anyone.

While I was busy staring, JJ was going over to Ariel. "Don't worry." she said gently. "He'll be fine."

She smiled at JJ. "I know." she said sadly. "But that doesn't mean that I don't worry."

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

It was several hours before Hotch, Morgan, and Spencer came back into the bullpen, and by then we had already gotten the news that Elle was out of surgery, and was going to be fine. I waited for JJ to tell the boys that, and continued working on the latest song for Undiscovered Nemesis in the meantime. We had done a lot more pop-punk songs on our last album, but we all agreed that we wanted to go back to the rock vibe that we all knew and loved.

I smiled when I felt Spencer rest his chin on the top of my head as he looked over what I had written down so far. "How's Rebecca?" I asked him.

"She'll be fine." he said, but I frowned. There had been something off since he first walked over, but it was only now that I was able to place it.

My husband _reeked_ of smoke.

I spun the chair around and nearly gasped out loud when I took in the sight of him. His face was smudged with ash and smoke, and his one of his pant legs was burned off almost to the knee.

"What happened?" I asked, hugging him tightly. Spencer grabbed onto me just as tight, if not even tighter.

"Randall Garner." he said quietly. "He… he had a bomb."

I honestly had absolutely no idea what to say, so I didn't say anything. I just held onto my husband a little bit tighter before letting go and taking his hand.

"Come on, Spence." I told him gently. "Let's get your mom and then go home."

 **A/N~ Wow! Thank you guys so much for the stream of comments - it definitely is keeping me motivated. I already have the next two chapters written. This one is coming a day early because I'm going to be travelling for a few days, so I'm not sure if I'll have any wi-fi.**

 **Thank you so much to ahowell1993, jords2189, Wild Rose 900, KirkSauber, raspberry dreams, vampire and inuyasha lover 13, tlcroft** (of course he would have, that goes without saying lol) **, , and ripon** (its one of mine, too!) **for their amazing reviews! Keep it up, my furry friends!**


	9. Garcia

_Ariel's P.O.V._

After the Fisher King debacle was over, we spent what was left of Spencer's vacation time in Las Vegas and Pasadena, before returning back home to Quantico - this time with Kat.

The first day that Spence went back to work, they were sent out on a case early in the evening, around five. He called me on the way to the airstrip, right in the middle of my cooking dinner for the both of us.

"Hey babe." I said as I answered the phone. "Are you on your way home? I'm making your favourite."

I smirked when I heard him practically moan at the thought - I had learned long ago that the fastest way to a man's heart was through his stomach, and my Spencer was no exception.

"I'm not gonna be home tonight at all - we just got a case." he said regretfully. I stopped what I was doing. I knew that this would happen, but I guess that I hadn't really thought about it too much. After all, this was the first time since I had gotten off tour that this had happened.

"Alright." I said after a minute. "No worries - maybe I'll just swing by the BAU after its done and give some to Garcia." I decided.

"That'd be nice." Spencer said. "I'm glad that you two are getting along so well - I knew you would."

I barely managed to hold back a snort of laughter after he said that. Garcia and I were anything _but_ close, but I was hoping that I would be able to fix that tonight.

"Alright, Spence. Go save some lives, and come home in one piece, okay?"

He laughed. "Yes ma'am." he teased. "I love you."

I felt my lips curl up in the same sappy grin that I got every time I heard him say those words. "I love you too."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

As soon as I hung up the phone, I realized that the rest of my team was staring at me, and I blushed.

"What?" I asked. They all just stared at me for a second or two longer until Hotch spoke up. "I thought that I was the only one who ever called their wife 'ma'am'."

That at least helped to ease the tension slightly, and got the team to relax a bit… all except for me, because I knew what was coming - the dreaded interrogation session.

"So how long have you two been married, Spence?" unsurprisingly, it was JJ who started off the questioning.

"Um, a little over three years now. We got married when I was twenty-one and she was twenty." I told them.

"What does she do?" Gideon asked.

"Ariel works, um, in the music industry." I said, stumbling over my words a little. The whole line of conversation was quite honestly nerve-wracking for me, even though they had barely started. I knew that my co-workers - my friends - would be interested, but I hadn't really been anticipating this.

"How did you meet?" JJ asked me.

Luckily, that was when Morgan picked up on my distress. "Come on, guys." he said. "Let's work on the case for now. We'll have plenty of time to interrogate both of the kids when it's over."

I flashed him a smile as the team actually listened, and he gave me one in return. Now hopefully things would go back to normal… at least for the rest of the case.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I was at the BAU by around six-thirty that night with what I hoped would be an acceptable peace offering.

I stopped one of the guys that I saw walking around - he was taller, with short black hair, and introduced himself as Agent Grant Anderson.

"Can you tell me where Penelope Garcia's office is?" I asked him sweetly. He gave me a once-over before noticing both my visitor's badge and the glare I was giving him, then took me to what I had heard my husband refer to on more than one occasion as 'the tech-cave'.

When I went in, I knew immediately why he called it that. The desk was covered in a mixture of strangely colored knick-knacks and a state-of-the-art computer system. The woman in question was sitting at her desk, her nails clicking against her keyboard in a strangely soothing rhythm.

"Of course." she said, and I assumed that she was talking to someone on the team. "Ttyl, sweetness."

I knocked on the door, and Garcia spun around in her chair, then visibly deflated when she saw it was me.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Hi." I said softly, a lot more nervous now that I was here in person. From what I knew about Penelope Garcia, she was like the overprotective big sister of the team, and while she usually trusted people completely, it took a bit for people to earn that trust. "So, I was already in the middle of making dinner when Spence called me saying that they had a case. So… I thought that I would bring it here, that maybe… You and I could talk a bit, get to know each other a bit more?"

She sighed, looking at me for a moment. "What is it?" she asked curiously.

I smiled, cracking the container open. "Chicken stir fry." I told her. "Spencer's favorite."

She hesitated for a moment longer before deciding. "Alright then. Let's have at it."

I smiled then, and for the first time since I had met Penelope, I got a tentative smile in return.

8888

Once we had started eating - during which I kind of just sat there awkwardly and watched while she continued to work away at her computer.

Then, right as I was taking another bite, she turned to me and asked, "So how did you meet Reid?"

Her bluntness - along with the large bite of chicken and vegetables - made me choke for a second as I tried to get my bearings.

Once I was finally able to breathe properly again, I looked up at her, my eyes still watering. "Sorry, what?" I croaked out.

"How did you two meet?" she repeated. "If you want me to trust you, to open up to you, you have to tell me more about you."

I sighed. "Alright." I told her. "I'll answer your questions - just not that one, not yet."

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because it's not just my story to tell." I answered. "Besides, its a story that I'd like to only have to tell once."

Penelope nodded, going along with what I was telling her, although I still thought that she seemed a bit suspicious of me. "Fine." she said. "Then when did you get married?"

I smiled at that, reminiscing a bit. "A little over three years ago." I told her. "We eloped, actually."

Penelope looked at me in shock. "What?" she asked. "You mean you didn't do the whole white dress, black tux, bridesmaids-and-flowers thing?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Why not?"

I just shrugged. "I don't know. We were young, and didn't have the money or the desire for a big ceremony. We just wanted to get married." Then I gave her a wicked smirk. "And I think that we were both a bit eager to get to the honeymoon."

That actually got a surprised laugh out of the blonde, and I smiled.

"Okay, so maybe I was wrong about you." Garcia admitted. "Maybe you aren't so bad after all."

"I'm really not." I agreed, and she snorted at my lack of modesty. "Seriously, though. I really appreciate how protective you are over the team." I admitted. "It honestly makes me feel a lot better about letting Spencer go out in the field."

Penelope smiled at me. "Aw." she said. "I'm touched."

Then we both heard a beep, and she sighed. "And speaking of our favorite band of adventurers…" she said, making me giggle as she hit the call button. "This is Penelope Garcia, live from Quantico! What can I do for you, caller number one?"

"Hey Garcia." Spencer's voice came out of the speakers. "I need you to do a complete background check on the victims."

"I'm on it." she said, hanging up. She started tapping away at her computer, and I took that as my cue to leave.

"Alright, Penelope." I said, collecting the bag of what were now leftovers. "I'll see you around, okay?"

She nodded, still engrossed in her work. "Definitely." she said.

I just smiled, walking out. Maybe I would introduce myself to Elle next...

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5, ripon, KirkSauber, and ToTheStarButPickMagic for their reviews! You guys are amazing!**


	10. How I Met My Wife

**A/N~ Hello, my beautiful behavioral analysts! It is I, your amazing purveyor of fictional goodness. Okay, enough of that. So the song scene in this chapter was inspired by the movie Lemonade Mouth. In my opinion, its honestly one of the last good Disney movies of its genre/type, but that's a completely different subject. So there's that… enjoy the chapter!**

 _Garcia's P.O.V._

Ariel had asked me to come over to their apartment early to help set up for the party - she had planned it so that the whole team could actually get a chance to really meet her, as well as some of what she and Reid called their extended family, before she had to leave for work for another few months.

When I got there, I knocked on the door before standing there for a moment and waiting, trying to juggle the bags in my hands.

When someone finally opened the door, I was going to walk in, but luckily I looked before I did, because the woman standing in the doorway wasn't Reid or Ariel.

The first thing that I noticed about her was her hair - which had been dyed fuchsia, and cut short - followed by the fact that she was not who I was expecting.

"I'm sorry!" I said quickly. "I must have the wrong apartment!"

Then Ariel appeared behind the woman. "No, Penelope, you have the right place." she noticed the bags I was carrying, and quickly shoved her friend out of the way.

"Katerina, help us out please?" she asked, and that was what got the fuchsia-haired woman moving.

Once we were inside and had dropped the bags on the table, I took a second to look around the apartment - and to look at the people in it. I had always imagined Reid's apartment to look like a library, and was pleased to see that I was right, but that was where it ended. Nothing else looked like I thought it would. There were framed posters and t-shirts from different bands and concert tours all over the walls, and one entire wall of the living room was covered in CDs. There were several guitars in the corner of the dining room, and a large stereo system set up on the kitchen counter.

"Thanks for coming early, Penelope." Ariel said gratefully. "I wouldn't have asked, but _someone_ is absolutely useless when it comes to helping." she finished, throwing a glare at the other woman - Katerina.

I took the opportunity to give Katerina an appraising look. I couldn't figure out how someone like her could be friends with my sweet genius. She wore a cute floral patterned dress underneath a flannel shirt, with black combat boots laced up her thighs.

"Hey," she protested, "You told me that if I came over, you would have beer. You never said anything about helping." Then she turned her attention to me, giving me a quick once-over. "So," she said, not sounding very impressed. " _You_ work with Big Brain?"

"Kat, be nice." Ariel scolded. "Penelope Garcia, this is Katerina Simmons - she's my sister, and Spencer's best friend. Kat, this is Penelope Garcia, technical analyst extraordinaire for the BAU."

I gave Ariel a surprised look. "You two are sisters?" I asked. I never would have guessed it if they hadn't told me.

They both laughed - Katerina looked a lot less intimidating now, so I hoped that she was warming up to me. "Not by blood." she explained. "But Ariel was at my house so often when we were growing up that my parents always joked that she lived there."

I laughed at that, and a few minutes later, Reid came walking in to find the three of us chatting away happily. He walked over to the table where Katerina was finishing up making the food, and tried to steal some, only to yelp in surprise when she smacked his hand with a spoon.

"Not yet, stupid." she scolded him. I turned around, half expecting either of the Reids to get mad at her for talking to him like that, but Reid just rolled his eyes, while Ariel snorted a laugh.

Someone knocked on the door, and Ariel went to open it. There was a few seconds of silence, before she laughed happily, and Katerina and Reid looked at each other, as if having a mental conversation, before speaking.

"It's Finn." Reid said, but Katerina shook her head.

"No," she said. "It's Lee."

Ariel laughed as she came around the corner. "You're both wrong." she said. "It's Gabe."

I felt my breath hitch in my throat as a man came around the corner. He was very tall, with dark hair. He wore a gray Henley with jeans, and what little bits of his skin that was showing was covered in tattoos. "Hey kitten." he said, going over to the table and ruffling Katerina's hair, making her swat at him in irritation.

He turned to Reid, giving him one of those weird man-hugs, saying, "Finn and Lee are on their way."

He smirked. "Oh, so they finally managed to get out of bed?" he teased.

Suddenly, two more men came into the kitchen. One of them was tall and blonde, while the other was short and Asian. "Hey!" the short one said. "Enough of the hate already!"

At this point I was slightly uncomfortable - I felt like I was intruding on a private moment of some sort.

"Oh shut up Lee!" Ariel said, punching him in the shoulder. "You know he doesn't mean it like that."

That was when the first guy - Gabe noticed me standing there. "Well, well, well." he drawled. "Who's this little cutie?"

Katerina rolled her eyes. "Gabe, this is Penelope - she works with killer here." she said, introducing us. "Penelope, this is Gabriel - the worst curse on Earth."

That made me laugh, even as I gave him an appreciative look. Then I realized what she had said. "Killer?" I echoed. "Why do you call Reid that?"

"It's a joking nickname, of course." Reid explained. "But, when I first met Ariel, she said that I didn't look like I could hurt a fly, let alone stand up to Katerina."

The last comment confused me a bit, but I brushed it off for the time being. That was when the rest of the team started to show up - first Morgan, followed by JJ, Gideon, and finally Hotch, Haley, and Jack. The only one who didn't come was Elle.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

As soon as Haley and Jack got there, Ariel went over and started cooing over the baby, leaving me to introduce the two halves of our family to each other - all of them except Elle. I wasn't sure why she hadn't come, I had called and invited her a few days ago. I hadn't told her why I wanted her to come over, though - I wasn't sure if she would believe me about Ariel unless she saw her.

My team - other than Morgan and Garcia, who were both talking with Lee and Katerina, respectively - was standing on one side of the kitchen, just staring at the band. I was just left awkwardly standing inbetween the two groups - three, if you counted Ariel and Hayley, who had gone into the living room to play with Jack.

"So, big brain." Katerina said after a bit, stopping her conversation with Garcia. "Are you gonna introduce us, or are we going to just stand here and stare at each other all night long?"

I blushed slightly, but was silently thanking Kat for breaking the ice a bit. "Right. Um, this is my team - you already know Derek Morgan and Penelope Garcia, and then this is Jason Gideon, Jennifer Jareau -" the woman in question gave me a Look, and I quickly corrected myself. "-sorry, JJ, and Aaron Hotchner - Ariel took his son, Jack, and wife, Haley, into the living room." Then I turned to my family - and that's what they were. While my team was slowly becoming like a second family to me, my real family was Gabe, Finn, Kat, Lee, and of course Ari.

"This is my family - Finn Ryan, Lee Voss, Katerina Simmons, and Gabe Geissler." I said, pointing to each of them in turn.

Garcia, unsurprisingly, was the one who broke the silence first. "So how did you guys meet?" she asked, and both Kat and Morgan started laughing, while I groaned. "What?" she asked. "What's so funny?"

"Okay, so you're gonna want to sit down for this story." Kat began, while Finn started to pull glasses down from one of the cabinets. "So our story begins about ten years ago…"

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Haley and I were playing with Jack in the living room, when there was a huge burst of laughter from the kitchen. We were both confused for a second, before JJ walked into the room, wiping tears from her eyes.

"Did Katerina really get those guys to leave Spence alone by threatening them with a Nerf gun?" she asked, as everyone else started to come into the room behind her.

I nodded, laughing. "Yup." I confirmed. "But that's nothing on how we met." I told them.

"Yeah, little lady." Morgan said, taking a sip of his beer. "You two never did tell us how that happened."

I sat down on the couch next to Spencer, and he wrapped his arms around my waist. "I guess you're right." I said, turning to look at my husband. "Do you want to tell them, or should I?" I asked him.

"You tell them." he said, and I sighed.

"Fine." I teased him, before turning to our friends. "So, our story starts about ten years ago, when we were fourteen…"

8888

"I was running late for my job - I was working at a local music store, giving lessons under the table - but I had spilled orange juice on my shirt, so I had to run upstairs and change first. By that point, I was basically living at the Simmons' house full time, sharing a room with Katerina. So, without even thinking about it, because I had thought that I was the only one home, I was taking off my shirt as I walked into the bedroom… only to stop about a foot into the room when I realized that there's this really geeky-looking kid with these huge glasses on his face sitting in my room and staring at me in horror."

8888

That was when both Haley and Morgan - along with the rest of the band - burst out laughing. "You've got to be kidding me!" Haley said, and I was a bit surprised. My first impression of Haley was that she was a bit more stern - kind of like her husband. But she proved me wrong fairly quickly.

"So you walked into your room, half naked -" Haley could barely get the words out, she was laughing so hard. "- and he's just sitting there, staring at you?"

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

"Hey!" I protested, feeling the need to defend myself. "I was a fourteen year old kid who had barely even talked to girls, let alone seen one half naked! Then she walks into the room, hair flying, looking angry as hell, and without a shirt. And then Kat - who was the reason that I was even there in the first place, because I was tutoring her - walks in the room, and goes -"

Kat said the next part with me, even though she was nearly in tears from laughing so hard. "Hey, Ariel, have you met - holy crap, why are you naked?"

By that point, every single person in the room was howling with laughter - even Finn, Gabe, and Lee, who had heard the story a million times by now.

"You two are ridiculous, you know that?" Morgan said, shaking his head. "Coming from anyone else, that story wouldn't have been believed for a damn second."

"Oh trust me, I know." I said, rolling my eyes even as I pulled my wife in closer.

8888

It was hours later, and the party was just starting to wind down, when Penelope started to mess with the music. I thought about stopping her for a moment, then decided against it.

I regretted that decision when she found one of our songs.

The song started to play, and Garcia turned to me, saying, "I thought that I was the only one who still knew that this song even existed!"

Before I even had a chance to respond, I was already back on memory lane.

8888

It was 1998, and we were playing at the one place where we had a regular gig going - a tiny little restaurant that made great pasta and had us play every Tuesday night. Unfortunately, we weren't doing as well as we normally did, but we all knew why.

Kat had finally gotten up the nerve to break up with Joel, her last boyfriend, and he hadn't been happy about it. We had all known that something was seriously wrong with their relationship, but we hadn't realized just how bad things were until the next day when Kat showed up at school the next day looking more depressed than we had ever seen.

That was when we all learned the hard truth that not all abuse is physical. And that sometimes people can hide the truth until its almost too late.

That was also when she had started to wear darker colors - nothing like what she would wear in her future, but less of the bright pink dresses and things that Joel had had her wearing. It was her first small rebellion against Joel - the guy who had decided everything for her, from what she wore to how her hair was styled, to how long she could practice with us. The one other major change she made was that Kat retreated - not physically, but emotionally.

We had all known that something was wrong, and now we were all plagued with guilt for not doing something about it. Our previously confident and shining star of a friend - the girl who had gotten Around Mars together in the first place - was gone, and replaced by a fractured shell of her former self.

It took us several weeks, but she had slowly started to return back to her usual self, with a lot of help from us. Everything was looking up, until that night, when Joel decided to show up at our gig with some new girl on his arm. Things had started to go downhill as soon as she noticed him in the audience.

So we were pleasantly surprised when, after an attempt at one of our latest songs had failed miserably, Kat turned to us with a gleam in her eyes that we hadn't seen for far too long.

"Guys, I kinda want to try that new song that Ari and I just finished writing. Are you up for it?" she asked. We all agreed almost instantly, mostly because we were just happy to see even the tiniest hint that our girl was going to eventually be okay.

So Kat put down her guitar and walked towards the mic, brushing a lock of her long dark brown hair behind her ear as she went.

She gripped the microphone tightly in her hands, taking a deep breath before exhaling loudly, then signaling to us to start playing.

I picked up a guitar to back her up, and we started playing.

 _Insecure  
In her skin  
Like a puppet, a girl on a string_

I could already see some of my best friend's confidence returning - she was playing to the crowd, performing the song. But most importantly, she was completely ignoring Joel.

 _Broke away  
Learned to fly  
If you want her back, gotta let her shine_

 _So it looks like the joke's on you  
'Cause the girl that you thought you knew_

She walked off of the raised platform that we used as a stage, and started to walk around the resturaunt then, trying to get the audience involved. It was working - people were clapping along and dancing in their seats.

 _She's so gone  
That's so over now  
She's so gone  
You won't find her around  
You can look but you won't see  
The girl I used to be  
'Cause she's  
She's so gone_

As Kat sang the chorus, she hopped up onto the counter and just sat there for a minute, before jumping down, fixing her hair, and continuing on. I had never seen her like this before, and it puzzled me for a moment before I realized why. She was putting everything she had and then some into this performance because Joel was there - because she wanted him to think that he hadn't affected her at all.

 _Here I am  
This is me  
And I'm stronger than you ever thought I'd be_

 _Are you shocked?  
Are you mad?  
That you're missing out on who I really am_

 _Now it looks like the joke's on you  
'Cause the girl that you thought you knew_

 _She's so gone  
That's so over now  
She's so gone  
You won't find her around  
You can look but you won't see  
The girl I used to be  
'Cause she's  
She's so gone away  
Like history  
She's so gone  
Baby, this is me, yeah_

 _She's so gone  
That's so over now  
She's so gone  
You won't find her around  
You can look but you won't see  
The girl I used to be  
'Cause she's  
She's so gone  
(That's so over now)  
She's so gone  
(You won't find her around)_

 _You can look but you won't see  
The girl I used to be  
'Cause she's  
She's so gone_

 _So long  
She's so gone, she's so gone... gone, gone, gone._

That night, Kat was happier than she had been for a long time, and we knew that everything would turn out right in the end. The next day, she showed up at school with most of her hair cut off, in the same style that would one day be her trademark look - all she needed was the hair dye.

8888

I snapped out of the memories as the song came to an end, which was lucky for me. Another few seconds and she would have been asking why I had spaced out, which was definitely a story that I did not want to share. Looking around the room, I could see that the rest of the band had just taken the same trip.

"I wonder whatever happened to them?" she asked. "One day they just disappeared - they were never really all that big, but they still had their fans."

Kat smiled. "They grew up." she said simply, shrugging her shoulders. "After a few years, they came back out with a new sound and a new name, but they're still around."

"Oh really?" she asked, intrigued. "What are they called now?"

This time, Lee answered. "Undiscovered Nemesis."

 **A/N~ Thank you so much to tannerose5, ahowell1993, ToTheStarButPickMagic, Wild Rose 900, raspberry dreams, KirkSauber, and ripon for their reviews! You are all brilliant people!**


	11. Endings and Beginnings

**A/N~ This chapter is a bit of a filler chapter, I'm sorry! But it does involve one character leaving, and another appearing for the first time, so… yeah. It also takes place over several months, too - I'm not sure exactly how many, as Criminal Minds doesn't really have an exact timeline to it. Okay, I think I'm done with the explanations.**

 **Disclaimer: I only own the band, people! The song used in this chapter is Just Tonight, by the Pretty Reckless. And I forgot to say so last chapter, but the song there was She's So Gone from the movie Lemonade Mouth.**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Unfortunately, I hadn't had a chance to go and meet Elle before she was allowed to go back on duty. Spencer and I tried several more times after the party, but either the team would get a case, or she wouldn't be home. I could've just gone to meet her on my own, but we had decided against that, as we had no idea how she would react to a random stranger showing up and announcing that she was the wife of one of her teammates.

As the months went on, and it got closer and closer to my next tour date, we stopped trying altogether. We were too busy trying to spend every moment that we could together before we wouldn't see each other for another six months, except for the occasional time when we would end up in the same city.

Spencer dropped me off at the airport three days before Elle was due back to the team, and I could tell that it was weighing on his mind. "Hey." I told him as we walked towards a security checkpoint. "It'll be alright, Spence. I'm sure that she'll take it just as well as the rest of the team did."

My husband laughed. "Then I think that you must be remembering how they reacted wrong, because I don't remember them taking it as well as you apparently do."

I laughed too, before going up on my tiptoes to give my husband one last long kiss. "Don't forget - let me know if you guys are gonna be on a case while we're having a show, okay?" I told him. "I'll leave you a ticket."

He smiled. "Alright, I'll remember." he promised. "As long as you remember to call me every night or two."

"As long as you pick up." I teased, before growing serious again. "I love you."

Spence smiled at me. "I love you, too."

I gave him one last kiss, before grabbing ahold of my bags and heading for the security checkpoint. I could feel Spencer's eyes on me as I walked away, and I did my very best to keep any tears from falling.

"LA, here I come." I muttered softly.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I was walking past the elevators, when I noticed her.

Elle was standing in the middle of the hallway, looking… apprehensive at best.

She smiled at me. "Well, if it isn't Dr. Reid." she drawled.

I was surprised to see her back already - she wasn't supposed to be back for another few days at least. "Elle! Wow!"

We stood there, awkwardly looking at each other, while I tried to figure out an opportunity to tell her about Ariel. I had been hoping that she would just notice my ring, but so far she hadn't, so I was struggling to come up with a Plan B.

Luckily, I found my opening pretty quickly.

"Nice haircut." she told me, and I instinctively put my hand up to run it through my hair.

"Thanks." I told her, putting my hands back in my pockets. "Yeah… I like your haircut, too."

Her smile got a little bigger - a little less forced - for a moment. "Is that a boy's regular?" she asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, it is." then I got self-conscious for a second. "Wha - do you not like it?"

"It's totally you." she said. That was my opening.

"Thanks." I told her. "Ariel said that too - although she says that she likes it both ways, because when it was longer, she could practice braiding on it…" I was rambling, and I knew it, but I just couldn't seem to stop myself. I was hoping that she would catch the name, and then be so distracted by that that she wouldn't even notice the rest of what I was saying.

"Ariel?" she asked, looking confused. "Reid, who's that?"

I blushed a little, bracing myself for all of the different possible ways that she could react. "Ariel is, um… she's my wife."

"Your wife." she said, her voice a complete monotone, but that wasn't what worried me. What worried me was that I couldn't read her facial expressions at all, because she had put on a mask of indifference as soon as I said the word 'wife'. Or maybe it wasn't a mask - maybe she just didn't care.

But I didn't have a chance to find out which it was before Hotch came over.

8888

It was another week or so before anyone mentioned Ariel again. By that point, I had started to arrive at work as early as possible, and leave as late as possible. The only one who stayed longer than I did was Gideon.

I was getting another cup of coffee when the man in question came down from his office.

"Doesn't anybody ever go home?" he asked as he made his way past Elle and me.

"You're here." she replied.

"Exactly." he said, bending over to look through the fridge in the break room. "Trust me, you don't want to model your social life around mine."

Just then, JJ came walking over with files in her hands. "If it makes you feel any better, Hotch and Morgan took off."

"Hotch is married," I told her. "Morgan's, you know, Morgan."

"So are you." Elle said, and then clarified when I looked at her, confused. "Married, I mean."

I could feel my shoulders slumping a bit as I thought about that - about the empty apartment that was waiting for me. "Ariel had to leave town for work." I explained. "She won't be back for another few months at least."

Everyone was quiet for a minute - everyone except for Gideon.

"What's this?" he asked, flipping through a case file.

JJ looked relieved by the subject change. "Police in Dayton, Ohio need our help with a serial rapist…"

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

We were just getting onto the tour bus to leave LA when my phone started playing "Safe & Sound". That was one of the first songs that Undiscovered Nemesis had gotten on the air, and it was one that Spence and I had written together. I smiled as I flipped my phone open.

"Hey babe." I said as I gave Gabe a playful shove and then sat down in his seat. He flipped me off and sat down next to me, letting me use him as a pillow. "What's up?"

What he said surprised me. "I think Elle is leaving."

"What?" I asked. "Why would she do that?" Spence had been keeping me updated on everything that was happening in the BAU as time went on, but I was already missing him more than anything, even with our daily calls.

"You know how Hotch had her go and talk to a therapist after she shot an UnSub?" he asked, and I nodded. Then I remembered that he couldn't actually see me.

"Yeah, I remember." I said. While I hadn't really liked how she went about it, I definitely understood why she had done it. If I had been in her shoes, I might have done the same thing.

"Well, she never showed up." he said. "She also didn't show up to get on the plane for this case, and neither did Hotch. I think that he's going after her."

I sat up, accidentally elbowing Gabe in the crotch. "Shit!" I said. "Sorry Gabe."

Spence laughed knowingly. "You just elbowed him in the crotch, didn't you?" he asked.

"Oh shut up." I said, and he laughed louder. "So you really think that she's going to leave?" I asked, getting back to the topic at hand.

My husband sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I really do." he said softly.

"I'm so sorry, babe." I told him softly, before deciding to change the topic. "Hey, so we're going to be in Vegas for at least a few nights - I was planning on stopping in to visit Diana."

I could practically _hear_ him rolling his eyes. "Sure." he said teasingly. "Keep rubbing it in that she likes you better, why don't you?"

I laughed at that, as we both knew that that was about as far from the truth as possible.

"Well, either way, sweetheart, it'll be okay." I told him. "I promise."

He laughed softly. "You're right."

"Ah, my favorite words." I teased, and he laughed again. "Alright, I gotta go, babe." I told him.

He sighed softly, before saying, "Fine. I'll talk to you tomorrow, okay?"

I hummed in agreement. "Love you."

"Love you too."

8888

The next few nights were concert nights in Detroit, so I didn't have a chance to call my husband until we were back on the road again. And even then, I didn't call him - he called me.

It was around nine-thirty at night when I got the call. "Hello?" I asked. I was sitting in the dressing room that the stadium had provided for Kat and I to share, putting on the last bits of my stage makeup. I was honestly impressed with the costume that they had come up with for me this time - a black lace hi-low dress with a poofy skirt, black knee-high combat boots, and a skull nose ring. It was feminine, but not overly done.

"Hey." Spencer's voice sounded tinny. "What's up?"

"Nothing much." I said. "Where are you?"

"I'm on the plane." he said, and then there was a pause, and I faintly heard a voice in the background. "Gideon says hello."

I smiled. "Tell him I said hi back." I heard him give my message, and then I heard something that had me sitting up straight. A woman's voice. It was faint, but I could clearly tell that it wasn't JJ or Garcia, and according to Spencer's latest voicemail message, Elle had quit.

"Who is that?" I asked, and - while I would never admit it - I could feel myself growing slightly jealous.

"What?" Spencer asked. "Oh, the voice? Yeah, thats, um, Prentiss - Emily Prentiss. She's new… she replaced Elle."

"What's she like?" I asked, trying to keep my voice even.

"She's actually quite impressive so far." he said.

"And does she know you're married?" I asked.

He laughed in disbelief. "Ariel… are you _jealous_?" he asked, and I blushed, shaking my head no, forgetting for a moment that he couldn't actually see me.

"Of course not!" I denied, and he laughed even harder.

"You are so jealous!" he said happily. "I thought that I was the only one that got like that!"

"Oh, shut up!" I said, even though I was laughing too.

Once we finally stopped laughing, he told me, "Yes, she does know." he told me. "At least, I'm assuming she does."

"Alright." I sighed, as Kat tapped my shoulder. I turned to look at her, and she signaled that we were due onstage in three minutes. "Hey, babe, I've got to go - I'm due onstage."

"Okay." he said, although I could hear the twinge of disappointment in his voice. "I'll talk to you soon, I guess."

"Of course you will." I said. "Love you."

"I love you too." I told him, before hanging up and smiling at Kat. "Let's do this." I said.

8888

Everything went dark, and the crowd grew silent as a wave of anticipation washed over them. Then the lights slowly came one - one spotlight at a time, revealing each member of Undiscovered Nemesis as fog rolled across the stage. First to be revealed was Kat Simms, and the spotlight shone on her as she starting to strum a slow melody.

The next spotlight lit up slowly, revealing Ari Ross as she began to sing.

 _Here we are  
And I can't think from all the pills, hey  
Start the car and take me home._

The other spotlights came on - first on Gabe, then Finn, then finally Lee, as they all began to play as well.

 _Here we are  
And you're too drunk to hear a word I say  
Start the car and take me home_

The crowd started to go insane as they kicked it up a notch, starting in on the chorus.

 _Just tonight I will stay and well throw it all away  
When the light hits your eyes  
Its telling me I'm right  
And if I, I am through  
Then its all because of you  
Just tonight_

 **A/N~ Thanks to all of you for everything - reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting! I can't believe that we reached over 50 reviews! Here's an early update to say thank you - but please keep reviewing!**

 **Thanks to ToTheStarButPickMagic, ahowell1993, Hippiechic81** (I think this is your first review, yay!) **raspberry dreams, and KirkSauber for their reviews!**


	12. House on a Hill

**A/N~ Hello, my lovelies! Okay, so this chapter is from the episode "Minimal Loss" in season four. However, I'm not actually skipping that far forward in the timeline - I'm just shifting the order of episodes around. Also, for my purposes, Gideon is in this episode instead of Rossi. I'm going to end up playing around with the order of episodes and things a lot, but for the most part things will stay the same. Sorry that this is a rather short chapter!**

 **The song in this chapter is House on a Hill by the Pretty Reckless.**

As they approached the compound, Prentiss kept trying to figure out what it was that Reid was doing.

He kept tapping his fingers against his leg - first one tap, then two sets of two. It was starting to worry Prentiss a bit.

"What'cha doing?" she asked.

Reid looked up, startled. "Sorry - I didn't even realize I was doing that."

"Reid, its fine." Prentiss reassured him. "What was it?"

He turned a bit red before he answered. "House on a Hill, by Undiscovered Nemesis. Something about this case is reminding me of it…"

"You listen to Undiscovered Nemesis?" Prentiss smirked. "I honestly never thought that you would ever listen to anything other than Mozart."

Reid looked offended. "Actually, I enjoy more of Beethoven's works…" then he smirked, making Prentiss laugh.

"I've never heard of that one, though…" she mused, making Reid slightly nervous.

"Uh, they… they just released it, actually." he said, hoping that she wouldn't be able to see through his lie. In reality, the song was one that wouldn't be released for another week or two, but he had heard the band work on it enough before they had gone on tour that he had it memorized.

"Nice." she said, and then they both lapsed into silence as they continued up the hill.

8888

They were on the plane on the way back to Quantico, and Prentiss was walking back to her seat when she noticed that Reid wasn't sleeping or reading like he usually did on the plane rides. Instead, he was listening to music through ear buds. Although, she realized, he had been listening to music a lot more recently.

She filed that thought away for later and sat down next to him. She tapped him on the shoulder, making him jump. "Sorry." she said as he pulled the ear buds out.

"Its alright." Reid assured her. "What can I do for you?"

"I was just wondering… what made you think of that song? Home on a hill?" Prentiss asked.

"Actually, its House on a Hill." Reid told her. "And the words of the song are oddly specific - which makes sense considering that the song is about the repressive effects that society can have on an individual's personality. But it fit with the case rather well." Then he held up the earbud. "Do you want to listen to it?" he asked.

Prentiss just stood there for a moment, thinking about it, before deciding. "Okay, sure." she said, sitting down next to him.

She put an earbud in as he restarted the song. It started out with the sound of a heart beating, before starting in with the rest of the instruments.

" _Somewhere in the end of all this hate"_

A woman's voice started, low and rough. She recognized it as the voice of the band's lead singer, Ari Ross.

" _There's a light ahead  
That shines into this grave that's in the end of all this pain_

 _In the night ahead there's a light upon this_

A second voice joined Ari's for the chorus - that of Kat Simms, the band's bass guitarist.

 _House on a hill  
The living, living still  
Their intention is to kill and they will, they will  
But the children are doing fine  
I think about them all the time  
Until they drink the wine and they will, they will, they will_

 _Somewhere in the end we're all insane  
To think that light ahead can save us from this  
Grave that's in the end of all this pain_

 _In the night ahead there's a light upon this  
House on a hill  
The living, living still  
Their intention is to kill and they will, they will  
But the children are doing fine  
I think about them all the time  
Until they drink the wine and they will, they will, they will_

 _I am not afraid  
I won't burn out in this place  
My intention is to fade and I will, I will_

 _In this house on a hill  
The dead are living still  
Their intention is to kill and they will, they will  
Keep your children safe inside  
Out of pocket, out of mind  
Until they drink the wine and they will, they will, they will"_

Once the song faded out, she pulled the earbud out, handing it back to Reid. "That was… not Mozart." she said jokingly - even though she was slightly shocked that _that_ was the kind of music that the bookish Dr. Reid listened to.

Reid laughed. "Or Beethoven." he added, and they laughed again.

"Seriously, though." Prentiss said. "That was amazing. Have you been to any of their concerts?"

Reid paled, and if Emily hadn't been so close she would have missed it. "What, you mean the band's?" he asked, and she nodded. "Um, yeah. Yeah, I've been to one or two" he lied.

"They're really good." she said, getting up to go back to where she had been sitting before. "I've been to one of their concerts before, but I've been wanting to go to another one for awhile.."

He just gave her a little half smile, saying, "Yeah, maybe you should." Before putting his earbuds back in and looking out the window.

8888

Their next case took them to upstate New York, and was solved in a number of days - which meant that Reid was able to convince Hotch to let him stay behind while the rest of the team flew back to Quantico.

That night, once he had said goodbye to the team, he headed for the rental car that Garcia had set aside for him - he would have to remember to thank her once he got back - and drove to the hotel that Finn had told him about - the Albany Morgan State House Inn. The man in question was waiting outside of the hotel for him, and they did that awkward man-hug thing before Finn brought him upstairs.

The band had paid for three rooms on the top floor of the hotel, under aliases - Amanda Richards, Kaylee Seds, Fred Ramirez, Leo Valdez, and George Getz. Luckily, no one had recognized them - as of yet. They had done their absolute best to keep a low profile, but Ariel had been depressed lately, and so they had decided to forgo their usual attempts at stealth in order to get Reid there. Although they still managed to keep a low profile, thankfully.

But even if they had managed to get on someone's radar, it was worth it to see Ariel's face light up when she opened up the door to her hotel room to find Spencer waiting on the other side.

 **Thank you to ahowell1993** (sorry, but I'm afraid my plan is the opposite), **ripon** (thank you!) **, ToTheStarButPickMagic, tannerose5** (why WOULDN'T they?) **, and KirkSauber for your reviews! You guys are amazing!**

 **Don't forget, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me!**


	13. Revelations part 1

**Hello, my lovelies! So here we have the start of one of my least favorite parts of this entire show, but hopefully it will be over with soon. This chapter is a little bit over six months after chapter 11, so you know what that means - Ariel's back!**

 _Reid's P.O.V._

The team had decided to go out to a bar for what they all referred to as "team bonding" - basically just going out and getting drunk. I would've preferred to have stayed in with Ariel, but Morgan had convinced me otherwise. Besides, she had apparently already made plans to do the same thing with the band. Although, I wasn't sure why they would possibly need to bond - they had just been together 24/7 for six months, after all.

Either way I was starting to really regret it now, especially since Prentiss wouldn't leave me alone.

"Oh, come on, Reid." she kept saying. "Let loose a bit. Just because your wife isn't here right now doesn't mean you can't have fun."

I knew that she didn't mean anything by it, but it was at this point that I was really starting to regret just letting Emily Prentiss know about Ariel as soon as she joined. I knew that she would have noticed the ring anyway, but at times like this it could still be annoying.

"Um, no thanks." I kept telling her. "I think I'm good."

I was just about to get up and leave when Morgan came up between us. I could've sighed in relief, thinking that Morgan had come to save me from her relentless nagging.

"Hey kid, I'm gonna hit the bar." he said, and I deflated. "You wanna come with?"

I was about to get mad at Morgan for not telling her off, until he gave me a quick wink. He had something up his sleeve - I just wasn't sure that I wanted to know what.

"Yeah, sure." I told him. We were halfway to the bar when I heard a laugh.

A very familiar laugh.

I looked over in the direction of the bar and smiled. There, with her back to me, was none other than my Ari-bear. She didn't look much like Ariel right then, though. Instead, she was dressed slightly more like Ari in ripped jeans, a black open-backed top, and red heels that were at least five inches tall.

8888

 _Prentiss's P.O.V._

It wasn't long after my conversation with Reid that I began to feel bad about what I had said. So I decided to try and find him. I went over to JJ first, who was over playing darts with a couple of guys. "Hey JJ, have you seen Reid anywhere?" I asked her. She threw another bulls-eye, before turning to look at the tables in the corner. "He was over there earlier…" she mused. "But I don't see him anymore, sorry. Maybe the others know where he is?"

I thanked her, then headed over to the table where I had left the rest of the team. Morgan had just gone to dance with a couple of girls, leaving Garcia, Hotch, and Haley sitting there.

"Have any of you guys seen Reid?" I asked them. Hotch and Haley shook their heads no, but Garcia nodded.

"I see him." she reported, although she looked slightly worried. "He's out on the floor with…" then she broke into a relieved smile. "Ariel! Oh, I didn't know that she was back in town!"

I looked towards the floor eagerly - I had yet to see Ariel Reid at all. Needless to say, I was shocked by what I saw. The entire time that I had been hearing about Reid's wife, I had pictured someone a lot like him - shy, geeky, but adorable in a 'younger sibling' kind of way.

The woman who was currently out on the floor was not like that at all. She was at least three or four inches shorter than Reid, if not more, with long, curly chocolate brown hair and a row of flowers tattooed down each of her arms. She wore a black open-backed top with ripped jeans and red heels - so the height difference between the two was actually closer to seven or eight inches. They were dancing just a few feet away from Morgan, and as we watched, the woman turned to face Reid, snaking her arms around his neck for a kiss which he was more than willing to return.

I was shocked. " _That's_ Reid's wife?" JJ and Garcia nodded, and then all of a sudden another woman came up to the table.

"Hey guys." she said, exchanging hellos with the team. "I see Derek found himself a honey." She gestured to the dance floor. "Or three."

"And our sweet genius is with his honey, too." Garcia said, sighing happily.

"Hold on." I said, "I'm lost. Who exactly are you?" I asked, looking at the girl. Her looks were definitely out there. She seemed familiar though, even though I had no idea why. Her short fuschia hair was pulled into little braided pigtails, with her bangs hanging in her face. She wore a military green flowy skirt that fell to just above her knees, with a tight white shirt underneath a studded leather jacket, and combat boots laced up to her calves.

She looked at me then like she knew who I was. "Hey, you're Elle, right?" she asked. "I'm Katerina Simmons - sister of the bride over there." she nodded over in the direction of the dance floor, where Reid was still out with his wife.

"Uh, no, actually." I said. "I'm Emily. Emily Prentiss."

She looked embarrassed before laughing it off. "Sorry," she said. "My bad."

"Why didn't you let me know that you were back in town?" Garcia said, sounding disappointed.

"Because we just got back, silly." the new woman said easily, taking another swig of his beer. "Why?" she asked, teasing. "Did you miss me?"

Garcia nodded, even though she looked slightly disappointed. "Of course!" she said.

Katerina just laughed. "No need to lie, Penny." she said, winking at the other woman. "You wanted to see Gabe, didn't you?" she asked.

Garcia blushed, but didn't deny it. "Okay, maybe I wanted to see him a _little_." she admitted. "But can you blame me?"

I stopped listening to them when Reid and his wife approached the table, quickly being drawn into hugs by the other team members, and I took the extra opportunity to examine the woman. There was something familiar about her as well, although I still couldn't place where I had seen her before.

"And you must be Emily Prentiss." Ariel said, as she made her way around the table to me. "Spence has told me a lot about you."

I was about to say something to her when JJ came back over to the table "Hey guys, sorry to cut the night short, but we've got a case."

"Alright." Hotch said, giving Haley a kiss on the forehead before getting up from his chair. "Meeting in the conference room in 20 minutes. And can someone please get Morgan off of the dance floor?"

I laughed as everyone gave similar looks of 'nope-I'm-not-doing-it', before Katerina sighed, getting up from her chair. "I'll get him." she said, rolling her eyes as she headed out onto the floor.

"Try not to rough him up too much!" Ariel called out, laughing as her friend responded with a simple gesture.

Ariel sighed, giving Reid a kiss before turning to me. "Here," she said, grabbing my purse and pulling out my phone before I can even say anything, and handing me hers as well. "Give me your number, and I'll give you mine, and we'll talk, alright? I'd love to get to know you more - the team is a huge part of Spence's life, so it's a huge part of mine, too." she said in explanation, before handing my phone back to me and pocketing hers. Then Katerina comes back, dragging Morgan along behind her, and soon we were all laughing as Reid teased Morgan relentlessly about being literally dragged by a woman half his size.

8888

The team finally gathered at the BAU, with Gideon meeting them there, saying that he had been at the Smithsonian. We were only there for a bit - long enough to get the details of the case and theorize on the profile for a few minutes, but that was it.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I called Ariel from my desk after we were done in the conference room - I had just stopped there to grab my go-bag before heading to the plane.

"Hey." I said as soon as she picked up. I could hear music blaring in the background, along with a lot of laughter and people talking, so I assumed that they still had yet to leave the bar.

"Hey, babe." she shouted, and I winced as I pulled the phone away from my ear. "What's up?"

"We've got a case down in Georgia." I told her once it was safe for me to put the phone next to my ear.

Ariel whined, "Really? But we just got back."

"Honey, are you drunk?" I asked her, worried.

'What? No." she denied. "I haven't had a drop all night.

"Yes, you are." I said as I headed for the elevators with Morgan walking alongside me. Her whining about my work was what tipped me off. I knew that she hated my having to leave all of the time, but she also knew that I was saving lives. So the only time that she ever really brought it up was when she was sick, exhausted, or inebriated.

"Whatever." she said - now she sounded angry. "I just can't believe that you're leaving. We literally just got back in town, and I wanted to tell you something."

I sighed. "Ariel, I'm sorry. But you know that it can't be helped. And I promise, as soon as we get back, I'm all yours." Morgan and I got into the elevator, and he held the door for Prentiss and JJ while I said, "And then you can tell me whatever it is, alright? I promise."

 **So this is the beginning of the heartbreak, and I am so, so sorry you guys. It gets worse before it gets better. Unfortunately for me - but luckily for you - I'm still not that good at writing the angsty stuff, so there's not too much of that… at least I don't think there is!**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, Hippiechic81, KirkSauber, ripon, SherlockReid, PleaseDeleteMe8217280, raspberry dreams, PleaseDeleteMe8158719, and artemis7448 for their reviews! You guys (and girls) are all amazing, and I'm so grateful to you all.**


	14. Revelations part 2

_Ariel's P.O.V._

I was worried.

Several days had passed since the last time I had spoken with Spencer on the phone. While normally that wouldn't have bothered me that much, he hadn't texted me even once since he left. Even though Spence wasn't a fan of texting, he would still text me if he couldn't get away from a case long enough to call.

Which meant something had happened, and I wasn't going to like it at all.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I was dying.

There was no other plausible explanation for the sheer amount of pain that I was feeling, until the door opened and Tobias Hankel walked into the room again, and I remembered what had happened.

Flying to Georgia.

Investigating the case.

Going to talk to the Hankel family, and then realising that Tobias Hankel was their UnSub.

Splitting up with JJ, and then… my eyes widened as it all came back to me. The last thing that I remembered was Tobias shoving a needle in my arm, and my eyes went wide at the thought of possibly ending up addicted to the drug.

"Tobias," I asked, and the sound of my own voice surprised me. It was hoarse from disuse, and I started to wonder…

"Tobias, how long have I been here?" I asked, starting to worry about my wife. Not only because I knew she would be worrying about me, but because I knew that there was a chance I might never see her again. I was wondering what she had wanted to tell me before we left, knowing that I might never have a chance to find out.

"Two days now… I think." he said, as he rolled up my sleeve again, preparing to put another needle into my arm.

I teared up slightly at the sight of it, knowing that I was acting childish, but I really didn't care anymore. I was scared, and tired, and the only thing that I wanted right now was to see my wife again. "No, please," I begged. "I don't want it…" my eyes rolled up in my head as Tobias injected me with the drug. "Ariel…" I whispered, before everything went black.

8888

Three days had passed since I had last talked to Spence, and I couldn't take it anymore. The band was heading out to New York City in a few hours to do a photoshoot to promote our next album, but before we left, I needed to know that my husband was okay. I tried calling him one last time, but when he didn't answer, I headed to the BAU, thinking that maybe Garcia would be able to tell me something.

But once I got to her office, the technical goddess was nowhere to be seen. Confused, I left her office and went to check the bullpen and the break room, hoping that she would be in there, but the only person there that I recognized was Anderson.

"Mrs. Reid!" he said, sounding surprised. "What are you doing here?"

"Have you seen Penelope anywhere?" I asked him. "I need to talk to her."

He looked anxious for a moment, like he knew something that I wasn't supposed to. "She's not here - she was called down to Georgia to help the team with their current case."

Needless to say, that set alarm bells ringing. Spencer wasn't allowed to tell me much about their cases, but from what he had told me in the past, I knew that Penelope stayed here, at Quantico, unless something was _seriously_ wrong. "Alright." I told him, trying to keep myself calm, even though the only thing that I wanted to do was get on the next plane to Georgia. "Thank you."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

The rare moments when I was fully conscious were full of pain and remembrance. There were flashes of a lot of my childhood, but even more moments of Ariel and I.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

We were on the plane to New York, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. I turned to Kat, telling her that I would be right back, before going to the plane's bathroom. I knew that I wasn't technically supposed to be making phone calls on the plane, but I had called Spencer over and over again while we were waiting at the airport, and now I was ready to call in the big guns.

"Gideon." the voice on the other end of the line said, and I took a deep breath.

"Gideon?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly. "It's Ariel - Spencer's wife."

"What can I do for you?" he asked, not even bothering with a 'hello'.

"Cut the crap." I told him sharply, my voice getting stronger due to my anger. "That's what you can do. I know something's gone wrong, Spencer hasn't picked up his phone for days, and he isn't answering any of my texts either. So, I'll tell you what you can do for me - you can tell me what the _hell_ has happened to my husband."

"Calm down, Mrs. Reid." the older agent said firmly. "I promise, Dr. Reid is fine. He's just undercover at the moment, which is why he hasn't been able to answer his phone."

"So you _promise_ that he is fine?" I asked him, stressing the word. "You promise that he is safe?"

Gideon sighed, before saying, "I promise you that he is safe."

"Alright." I told him, even thouh I still wasn't completely convinced. "I'm trusting you."

8888

 _Gideon's P.O.V._

As soon as I flipped my phone shut, I heard Hotch speak up.

"Why did you lie to her?" he asked me, his normally stern face showing the slightest hint of emotion. "You should have told her the truth, Jason."

"And risk her panicking and losing hope?" I asked him, giving a grim smile. "If I was her, I'd rather have false hope than none at all."

 **Thank you to all for reading once again! And an extra-special thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5** (of course not! That's not how love works) **raspberry dreams, artemis7448** (spoilers) **, Guest, and Momochan77 for their reviews!**


	15. Revelations part 3

**A/N~ Hello! So here we have the ending of Revelations, but the beginning of the struggle with Reid and dilaudid. However, I hated how the show wrote Spencer with his addiction, because it could have been stopped before things got too bad. So here's my take on what should have happened.**

 **This takes place right after the episode Fear and Loathing - in this AU, Spencer was on leave when they took that case.**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I was being plucked and primped by the makeup ladies for Undiscovered Nemesis' photo shoot when my phone rang. I lept out of my chair, ignoring the cries of the makeup and hair people as I grabbed my phone from where it sat charging.

"Hello?" I asked breathlessly, clinging to the tiny bit of hope that I still had that my husband was on the other end. Normally I would have been a lot more composed, especially when I was in my 'Ari Ross' persona, but I had stopped caring about that after three days of no contact from my husband. Not that anyone at the shoot would comment, anyways. Our producer had told them all that I had a close friend in the hospital, and that I was desperately waiting for news on their condition.

"Hey, Ari-bear." my husband's voice rasped out, and I collapsed into a heap on the floor, tears rolling down my face just from hearing his voice.

People began to swarm around, yelling for help, but all I could make out was indistinct murmuring over the sound of my Spencer's voice.

"Don't you," I had to pause for a second to swallow the lump in my throat before I could continue. "Don't you _ever_ scare me like that again, you hear me?"

Spencer laughed, and my heart skipped a beat at hearing that sound that I never thought I would hear again. "Yes, ma'am." he told me. "When are you getting home?"

"I should be home within a day or two." I told him.

"Alright." he sighed. "I love you."

"Love you too." I whispered, before flipping my phone shut. I looked up at the band members gathered there, and finally I smiled. "He's okay." That was when it really hit me. "He's really okay."

And yet, something still didn't feel right.

The entire group - Finn, Lee, Kat, and Gabe - wrapped themselves around me, and I could hear the whispering gossip even through my happiness. I knew what they were whispering about, though - Undiscovered Nemesis was showing emotion. Usually we were always cool and collected, with a lot of snarky attitude thrown in. But never this openly emotional, or at least not open with the negative ones.

"What is the _holdup_ over here?" the photographer shouted, storming over with his camera in his hands. "I am waiting to make you people beautiful!"

The rest of the band backed away, except for Kat, who kept her arm around my shoulder. Finn walked over and clapped the photographer on the shoulder. "Sorry, man." he said. "We just needed a moment or two."

I walked back over to the makeup table, feeling completely embarrassed when I saw the mascara tracks that were running down my face.

The photographer came to stand behind me just as I reached for the makeup remover.

"Stop!" he cried out, practically tearing the bottle from my hands. "What are you doing?" he asked me.

"Fixing my makeup." I told him.

He shook his head, giving me a look that said I had no idea what I was doing. "Don't. Don't you dare." he grabbed me by the shoulders, steering me towards the set. "And… you!" he said, pointing to Finn. "Come here." Finn complied, even though he looked completely confused.

"Right." the photographer said, pushing us in front of the background - a post-apocalyptic scene complete with smouldering fires and smoke filling the air. "I want you to act like you are in love - like he just told you the most heartbreaking news ever, but that you still love him anyway."

Finn blanched, but I just got mad. "Are you _insane_?" I shouted at him. "There's no way in _hell_ that I'm going to do that!" Finn was backing away slowly, knowing better than to be near me when I lost my temper, but the idiot photographer just kept coming closer, snapping picture after picture. Kat was slowly moving over, and I knew that she was waiting for me to snap.

Finally, I lost it completely. "What the _damn hell_ are you doing?" I yelled, going to swing at him, but Kat stopped me.

"Just… wait, chicadee." she said quietly. "Give the man a second to explain." Then she glared at the man in question. "But he'd better do it fast, or else I might be the one to attack."

"I wanted to get her angry." the photographer admitted quickly. "Ari Ross shouldn't weep - she _doesn't_ weep. But tears of anger, those are acceptable."

"What on earth are you talking about?" I asked him, but he didn't answer. Instead, he gestured to the screens behind him, where the last pictures that he had taken were displayed.

My breath caught in my throat as I looked at the pictures. I barely recognized myself in them. Instead, I saw an angry goddess, dressed in blood red lace and biker leathers. I recognized the clothes, though - black ripped jeans, studded high-heel boots, black fingerless gloves that were laced up to my elbows, a maroon lace crop top and a black leather jacket over it - but not much else. Her face was contorted with rage and anguish, and the mascara lines on her cheeks only added to the effect. My hand was raised in the picture, about to come down on the poor photographer, but Kat was holding me back. She was nearly unrecognizable as well. Her lips were painted black, and so were her eyes, making her hair pop even more than it usually did. She wore a black trench coat over top of a camouflage-print bralet, with dark ripped jeans and combat boots that laced up to her knees. She looked like a militarized avenging angel, what with the look of fury on her face as she held me back.

"Wow." I said, nearly speechless. "Just, wow."

The photographer smiled nervously, and I wondered if he was still afraid that I'd flip out on him again. "You like it?" he asked, and I nodded.

"I love it." I told him.

8888

I was opening the door to the apartment that my husband and I shared around thirty-six hours after leaving the photoshoot.

"Spencer?" I called out as I came through the door. It was only one in the afternoon, but I thought I'd see if he was home anyway. "I'm home!"

I was surprised when there was actually an answer - I heard something slamming shut, and then there was silence for a moment before Spencer appeared in the hallway. I couldn't help but cry out when I saw him, and I ran over, grabbing onto his shoulders.

"What the hell happened?" I asked as I looked him over. He was a wreck - he looked like he hadn't shaved for at least a week, his hair was hanging in his face, limp and greasy, and he was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and sweatpants that looked like he had pulled them out of the garbage.

"Nothing." he muttered, pushing me off of him. "I'm fine."

I looked at him in shock as I hit the wall behind me, but he didn't even react - that was what really worried me. Usually if he knocked into anyone, even accidentally, he would start apologizing like crazy. Now he didn't even look to see if I was okay.

"No you're not." I told him, shoving him back. I felt horrible about it as soon as I did, though, because he nearly doubled over in pain. "Oh god." I said, starting to panic. "Okay... sit down, shirt off." I said, trying to put myself into a detached frame of mind - I knew that I wouldn't be able to help Spence if I was too busy freaking out over his injuries.

Luckily he listened to me - even though Spence was a beanpole, I knew that I wouldn't be able to move him if he didn't want me to. He sat down at the dining room table and pulled the long sleeved shirt over his head.

"Oh my god, I am going to _kill_ Gideon." I said, unable to think of anything else that I _could_ say. "Spencer… what happened to you?"

His torso was covered in bruises, a whole spectrum of reds, browns, purples, blues, yellows, and greens.

He looked at me in confusion. "What? Why, what happened with Gideon?" he asked. I hesitated for a second before telling him, "Nothing." I didn't want to lie to him, but I also knew how Spence idolized the man. I wasn't going to do anything to jeopardize that, no matter how much Gideon deserved to be knocked down a few pegs.

Then I noticed the marks in the crook of his elbow, and I got mad.

"Spencer Reid, you'd better have a damn good explanation for why there are track marks on your arms." I told him.

He sighed, thinking about it for a second before answering me. "The last UnSub kidnapped me." he said softly, his voice breaking a bit. "He… he injected me with Dilaudid." He hung his head, barely looking at me. "I - I got addicted, Ariel."

My anger faded away almost instantly, and I practically threw myself at my husband. "Oh, Spence…" I sighed, but then something occurred to me. "You've still been shooting up, haven't you?" I asked him, and he gave an almost imperceptible nod. That's when my anger came back, full force.

"Damn it, Spencer!" I yelled, then took a breath. Yelling wasn't going to solve anything. "It's one thing for you to be put in circumstances beyond your control. But it's a completely different thing for you to keep making things worse for yourself. There's not just you to think about here, for god's sake!" I pressed my hands to my stomach, hoping that what I was about to say would shock him enough that I would be able to get through to my drug-addled genius. "Spencer, I'm telling you this now, because damn it, I'm not going to put any one of us through you on drugs. I'm pregnant, Spence, and I swear to god if you don't get help, I will walk out of that door and you will never see me or our baby ever again."

My husband looked at me with his mouth hanging wide open, and if the circumstances were different I would've been laughing at how ridiculous he looked. "You don't mean that." he said, completely ignoring what I had just told him. I wasn't sure if that just made me angrier or more upset, but either way I was just about ready to kick his ass.

But instead of breaking down like I wanted to, I just looked at him and let my tears run down my face, not even bothering to try and wipe them away. "Try me." I dared. "I love you, Spencer. Which is why I'm not going to stand here and watch you fucking self-destruct."

I went to walk past him then, but he grabbed me around the waist. "Spencer, let go of me." I told him.

"Please," he said, and I could feel the lump forming in my throat just from how heartbroken he sounded. "Don't leave me."

I rolled my eyes as I turned around to look at him. "I'm not leaving you, you moron." I said, teasing him slightly - it was my way of letting him know that things would eventually be okay between us. I was still mad at him - mad wasn't even the right word. I was absolutely, completely, _furious_ with him, but I was even madder at someone else. "I just have some errands to run, and I need some time to calm down."

"Okay." Spencer said, a bit too eagerly for my tastes. "I have the next week off, so we can spend time together when you get back, right?" he asked, and then his eyes flickered down to my belly. "And maybe then we can talk about…" he didn't say the last word, but made little rocking gestures with his arms instead, and my heart nearly melted at the cuteness.

" _Damn hormones._ " I muttered under my breath, before smiling at him. "Of course we can." I said patiently. "After I get home."

I headed for the door as fast as I could, hoping that I wasn't forgetting anything… then I realized that I was. "Spencer?" I asked.

"Yeah?"

"Do you have any vials of that stuff in this apartment?" I asked him slowly, folding my arms over my chest as I turned to stare at him.

He hesitated.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I didn't know what to say to Ariel. I wanted to keep the dilaudid, but at the same time, I didn't want to lose her… or our baby, for that matter. I had just learned about it, but I already knew that I wanted to be a part of its life.

But I didn't know what to do. The call of the drugs was strong, but I knew that there was no way that Ariel would stay if I continued with the drugs.

So I told her the truth.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

"Yeah." he admitted.

"Go get them." I told him, and he nodded before leaving the dining room. I heard him searching through a drawer for a minute before he came back with two little vials in his hands.

As soon as he handed them to me, I carried them over to the sink and poured both vials down the drain, then dumped the containers into the trash. When I was done, I went over and kissed my husband on the cheek, pulling him in for a hug as well. "I love you." I told him softly.

"Even with all of this?" he asked, and I would've laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the question if I didn't know him so well.

"Of course, stupid." I told him. "For better or for worse, remember?"

8888

I felt my breath hitch as I walked into the BAU bullpen, unsure of what to do next.

Luckily, things were made easier for me when JJ looked up from where she was sitting talking with Morgan and the new girl - Emily.

"Ariel!" JJ said frantically, hurrying over to me. "How's Spencer doing?" she asked.

"I really don't know." I told her honestly, glad to take a moment to collect myself before doing what I came here to do. "He's… he's in bad shape." I admitted, then tried to change the subject. "Have any of you seen Gideon?" I asked. "I need to talk to him."

The agents looked at each other for a minute, before Emily answered me. "Yeah, he's… up in his office. Why?"

But I was already heading up the stairs, deciding to stop in and talk to Hotch before going to see Gideon. He was without a doubt the most logical member of the team - at least, he was when Spencer wasn't there.

Hotch looked up from the paperwork that he was doing and looked surprised to see me there. "Mrs. Reid." he said, getting up from his chair. "What are you doing here?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Agent Hotchner." I said. "Call me Ariel."

He nodded and gave a small smile. "As long as you call me Hotch. Reid should be at home - is there something that you needed"

I decided to just be honest with him. "I'm here to possibly castrate Jason Gideon." I told him, leaning against the doorway. "Is that alright with you?"

Hotch gave me a Look before apparently deciding that I was kidding, because instead of stopping me, he gave a little smile and said, "Just don't hurt him too badly, alright?"

I gave him a Look of my own before replying. "No promises." and heading to the next office over.

I thought about knocking for a second, before deciding against it. I barged into the room then, and let the door slam shut behind me. Gideon didn't even bother to look up.

"Whaddya want, Hotch?" he asked, but I didn't correct him, instead waiting for him to look up. When he finally did, he arched an eyebrow at me before sitting back in his chair. "Mrs. Reid." he said. "What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me why the hell you lied to me." I said. I knew that I sounded childish for saying it, but I didn't care. He didn't answer, choosing to just stare at me instead. "You told me that Spencer was undercover, that he was safe. Then, I get home and find him bruised and beaten, and barely able to stand!" I didn't mention the drugs, knowing that if the Bureau found out, Spencer would be kicked out in a heartbeat.

"I don't know what you expect me to say -" he started, and I cut him off.

"You don't know?" I said, my voice getting louder and louder as my irritation built. This was ridiculous. I was irritated - scratch that, I was _pissed off_ \- worried, and I could feel the morning sickness starting to rear its ugly head - because no matter what they said, morning sickness wasn't only in the mornings. "How about that you're sorry, to start. That you're sorry that you lied to me, that you _knew_ my husband was in danger, that you _knew_ there was a chance that he was never coming home, but you _didn't give a damn._ "

"I could tell you that." he admitted. "But I'm not going to."

I smiled at him, although I was pretty sure that it looked more like I was baring my teeth. "I'm only going to tell you this once, Gideon." I said, my voice low. "Don't _ever_ lie to me about him. _Ever._ "

And with that, I left the BAU to head home.

 **Thank you once again to all who have reviewed - ahowell1993, ripon, raspberry dreams, tlcroft, Momochan77, Guest, Guest, and SakuraKoi - you are all amazing! Every reviewer is precious to me, and I'm so glad that you all read this! That goes for everyone, too, not just those who review. You all are amazing, and I'm so thankful to each and every one of you.**


	16. Fear

**A/N~ hello, my lovelies! I would just like to make it known that the whole scenario with Jimmy Kimmel in this chapter is purely hypothetical. I mean nothing against Jimmy Kimmel in this, and I have honestly not watched the Jimmy Kimmel show more than a few times. I only chose him as his show was on in 2006, during the time frame of this chapter, and it is a very well known show. Just wanted to make sure that everyone is aware of that.**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Several days had passed since Spencer had come home from Georgia, but I was still worried. I had made sure that the apartment was cleared of any dilaudid before we left, and asked Morgan to keep an eye on him. Now Undiscovered Nemesis was heading out to LA, set to appear on the Jimmy Kimmel show the next night.

Everyone else on the plane was asleep - luckily our manager had managed to get us a private plane this time around, so we all had room to stretch out. I couldn't sleep though. I had been trying to finish writing the lyrics that we had all been working on before, but I couldn't concentrate at all. I was still thinking about Spence, and the baby.

I still couldn't believe it, but at least I was dealing with it better than Spencer was. After I had gotten back from talking with Gideon, we had sat down to talk over things. He had told me just how afraid he was of what he might become, and I told him that I was honestly afraid of the same thing. Then we started talking about the baby, and just never stopped. At first, he had refused to believe that I was even telling the truth about my being pregnant, which stung more than I'd ever admit. But once he finally accepted it, we ended up talking until we fell asleep on the couch, and, thinking back on it, I was reminded of the early days, when we had just started dating and were still getting to know each other.

I smiled absentmindedly as I rubbed at my stomach. I was only a little over eight weeks along, and wouldn't begin to show until around twelve to sixteen weeks. We were both so excited about this, although Spence was a bit worried, what with Diana's schizophrenia. Worried probably wasn't the right word, either - he was terrified that either he or our child would have the mental illness that destroyed most of his childhood.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't even realize that anyone had woken up. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned around.

"Easy, mermaid." Finn said, and I rolled my eyes at him.

"You know I hate that nickname." I grumbled.

He just laughed. "I know - that's why I use it." then he stopped laughing, and I nearly groaned. I recognized the look he was giving me - it was the patented 'I'm worried about you because I know that something's upsetting you and I'm going to force you to talk about it' look. That was the thing with Finn. Most people thought he was the "strong and silent" type, and they weren't wrong. But he was also the "overprotective big brother" of our little band of misfits.

"What is it?" I asked him. "I know that look, and I know that it usually leads to some sort of lecture, so I'm just going to stop you here."

He sighed. "Curses, you've seen through my clever ruse!" he quipped, and I laughed softly. "It's just… you've been out of it since this last case." he didn't have to clarify what he was talking about, since there was really no doubt as to what he meant. "And we all thought that you would be back to normal after your man called, but you're still… tense, I guess." Finn shrugged, wrapping an arm around my shoulders and squeezing me tight. "We're just worried about you kiddo."

I snorted. "You're only a year or so older than me, Finn." I said, raising an eyebrow at him. "That's nowhere near enough for you to be calling me 'kiddo'."

He rolled his eyes at me, then motioned to the notebook that was in my hand. "How much more of the song did you get done?" he asked me, and I gave him a little smile.

"Not much…" I said, then admitted, "Okay, none of it. I started working on something new, actually."

Finn nodded, understanding immediately. We all had our different coping mechanisms - Gabe would go running, Lee and Finn would practice, Kat would head to the nearest gym or dojo, and I would write lyrics. "Alright." he said,walking over to where he and Kat had stored their guitars. "Which one do you want?" he asked me.

I hesitated. "Do we have an acoustic?" I asked him carefully, and his eyes widened, but he didn't comment. We rarely even brought the acoustic guitars with us, since they weren't really ever used in our music.

"Yeah." Finn said as he grabbed one from where he and Kat had stored them earlier. He handed it to me before sitting back down in the seat across the aisle.

I sat there for a moment, thinking about what I was going to do, before taking a deep breath. "Okay." I told Finn. "So I don't have all of the lyrics figured out yet, but the tune goes something like this…"

8888

We landed the plane in LA, and it was utter chaos. The entire airport was full of people, and it seemed like half of them were waiting to ambush us.

We sat on the plane, trying to figure out how to do this, before Finn pointed something out. "You guys, we still have our civvies on us." he said. "So we just slip those on, and cover up the kitten's fur -" Kat hissed at that, making us all laugh, "and then we can sneak out."

"But do we really want to?" Lee asked. "I mean, these are our _fans_ we're talking about. I don't know about you, but I don't want to disappoint them."

"Lee's right." Gabe said. "I definitely don't want to do that to our people."

I grimaced, feeling a bit of morning sickness coming on. "Alright." I said quickly. "I'm game if everyone else is." then I left them to talk it over as I hurried back to the bathroom. I could feel my morning sickness returning, and I barely had time to pull my hair back so that I wouldn't get it covered in vomit before I was bent over the toilet.

I was still puking when the door opened and I heard someone else enter the tiny bathroom.

"Hey baby girl." Kat said, and I felt her hand starting to rub soothing circles on my back. "You alright?"

I was able to stop retching for long enough to give her a Look.

"Okay, so maybe that was a bad question." she admitted as I finally sat up and headed back out to where the rest of the gang was waiting for us. I grabbed a bottle of water and drank about half of it, just trying to get rid of the awful taste in my mouth. Kat followed me back out, and looked like she was about to ask me more questions, so I cut her off.

"So what's the plan, guys?" I asked. "Do we go out there and see our fans, but possibly get mauled in the process, or do we disappoint our fans but keep all of our limbs?"

They all looked at each other for another thirty seconds or so, having a silent conversation.

Lee was the one to answer my question. "Let's go out there and meet some people." he said. "Better grab the riot gear, just in case."

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It was almost like a bomb had exploded the second that we stepped out into the terminal. People were screaming, cameras were flashing, and none of us had any idea what to do. This was the first time that we had to deal with this many people at once - at least, outside of a concert. But at concerts the fans were kept back at least a bit, instead of pushing up against us.

Now, though, there was nothing to keep us separate from our fans except for a few security people that our manager had insisted on. It was exhilarating, to say the least. By the time that we actually made it out of the airport, we were all practically in shock at the sheer number of people that had come to see us.

To my surprise - and embarrassment - I actually started to tear up a bit when we got out to the car.

The guys all looked terrified, and actually started to shove at each other in an attempt to get away from what they considered to be 'cooties'. Kat just rolled her eyes at all of them and moved over to wrap an arm around my shoulders.

"Just relax, Ari." she said soothingly, although I could tell that she was freaking out a bit.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I was stuck at home for another two days before I was allowed back at work, and it was killing me. I had never been so bored in my life. I was sure that if I had to do this - just sitting around, doing nothing - I was going to lose my mind.

My phone went off then, and I started to look for it. I finally found it after a few minutes - it was buried under a pile of blankets.

I flipped it open and hit the "open message" button.

 _Hey killer._ It read. _Make sure to watch the Jimmy Kimmel show tonight, k?_

I just smiled at the message, knowing that I shouldn't answer. According to what she had told me about the band's schedule for their trip to LA, she was supposed to be at a magazine interview right now.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. I wasn't even surprised anymore, it was probably Morgan again. Ariel had assigned him to be my babysitter until she got back.

But when I went to open the door, I found Garcia there instead.

"Hi, my junior G-Man!" she said excitedly, pulling me into a hug. I just stood there in the doorway for a minute, staring at her.

"Why are you here?" I asked, and a look of hurt crossed her face. "Not that I don't want you to be here." I said quickly. "Its just that I was expecting Morgan…"

She looked surprised for a second, before admitting, "The rest of the team got a case, so he sent me instead."

"Alright." I said, smiling at her then. "Come on in."

8888

I turned on the Jimmy Kimmel show just in time, and my face nearly split in two, my smile was so big. Undiscovered Nemesis was centered in the camera lens, but I barely even noticed the rest of the band as I looked at Ariel. She wore a baggy gray shirt that I was pretty sure had been stolen from my closet that said _Death to the Pixies_ on it. It completely dwarfed her tiny frame, and the short sleeves had been rolled up so that the shirt had no sleeves at all. The shirt went nearly down to her knees, and luckily she was wearing ripped jeans instead of shorts, because otherwise it would have looked like she wasn't wearing pants. Kat was sitting next to her, wearing a black-and-green plaid pleated miniskirt overtop of pantyhose and thick-soled combat boots, with a Ramones tank top overtop of a fishnet shirt.

"Who are they?" Garcia asked me as she came over and curled up on the couch with me.

"Undiscovered Nemesis." I told her. "They're a rock band."

She looked at them for a minute, studying their faces and I found myself actually a bit worried. If there was anyone on the team who could figure out the truth of Ari Ross, it would be Garcia.

"So for those of you who don't know my guests," Jimmy Kimmel started. "then you have obviously been living under a rock."

Ariel burst out laughing at that, and I felt a little green-eyed monster start to rear its ugly head. I knew that it was entirely uncalled for, but I didn't like seeing anyone else get that sort of reaction from my wife.

"And if you do know them," he continued. "Then allow me to introduce them anyway. Finn Ryan, Lee Voss, Gabriel Geiss, Kat Simms, and last but certainly not least, we have the lovely front lady of the band, Ari Ross. Together they are the amazingly talented group Undiscovered Nemesis."

Ariel sat up just the tiniest bit straighter then as she squirmed a bit. She was looking a bit pale, but I couldn't tell if it was just because of the studio lights and things, or if something was really wrong.

"Thanks for having us." Kat responded.

"So, you have had a rather amazing rise to fame lately, isn't that right? Your last album sold over two _million_ copies, earning you your first ever gold record, is that right?"

"Yeah." Finn said, and that got Garcia to speak up.

"He doesn't exactly look like the talkative type." she commented, but I didn't even bother replying.

"Now, what exactly do you think has helped you with your careers - that is, what keeps you going, keeps you performing?"

Ari smiled at that. "Well, our fans are definitely a huge part of what keeps us going." she started, and the rest of the group nodded in agreement. "But our family and friends are the reason why we have been able to make it this far. Without their support and help, we wouldn't have made it past our first tour."

The interview continued on for awhile longer, and I could feel my jealousy growing stronger as time went on. It was obviously that Jimmy Kimmel was flirting with Ari, and that she was getting more and more irritated about it.

At one point, even Garcia commented on it. "Okay, this is getting ridiculous." she said. "He's blatantly harassing her! How is she not getting pissed off about that?"

I could feel my jaw aching from the force of my teeth grinding together as I answered her, trying to keep from snapping at Garcia or saying something that I would regret. The anger at seeing someone else flirting with my wife was doing strange things to me - along with the usual reaction of jealousy, I could feel the desire for dilaudid was stronger than it had been for days. I had started going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings as soon as Ariel had given me her ultimatum. That, combined with the fact that, in about seven months I was going to be a father, gave me very good reasons to kick the habit. The show went to a commercial break, and I took that opportunity to answer her. "Well there's not much that she can do about it while they're on the air, is there?" I grumbled.

We just sat there awkwardly until the commercials were over. As soon as it went back to the show, though, it was clear that something had happened during the break because now Kat was sitting next to Jimmy, and Ari was sitting on the other end of the couch. Jimmy was also looking very embarrassed, blushing slightly every time that his eyes even went anywhere _near_ her.

"Whoa." Garcia said, looking shocked. "Something obviously happened."

I smirked at that, imagining what had happened. "Oh, I'm sure something did."

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

As soon as we were given the green light that we had cut to commercial, Jimmy Kimmel was turning to flirt with me some more, but I had had enough.

"Okay, enough is enough." I said, turning to him. "I'm flattered, but stop. Just stop. I'm not interested, and even if I was, its just not professional. So just… Stop." With that said, I got up from where I was sitting and moved to the other end of the couch, sitting next to Lee instead.

Jimmy waited for a moment before turning to Kat, who was sitting there playing with her hair. "So, what else can you do with those hands?" he asked her. She looked up at him and smiled, showing more teeth than the average shark.

"Strangle you." she said sweetly. I smirked, while Finn hid his smile, and Gabe and Lee burst out laughing. He went so pale that for a moment I thought he was going to pass out. Luckily he didn't, because there would have been a big problem if he did.

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"And we're back!" Jimmy said, smiling into the camera. "And now we have Undiscovered Nemesis, with their newest song, Fear!"

The audience applauded as the lights dimmed, and I took a deep breath. This was the song that I had been working on on the plane ride, but the band had come together to help me finish it.

The guys started up on the instruments, and I waited for my cue. This was our first time performing live on the air, and even though we had played in front of a live audience too many times to count, it still felt like the first time all over again.

Lee started in on the drums, with Gabe and Finn starting on their guitars a minute later.

 _Are you scared of the dark  
Are you afraid they'll break your heart  
Are you afraid you'll lose yourself  
Are you afraid of your own hell_

Are you scared to lose  
Are you afraid to choose  
Are you afraid you'll win  
Are you scared of your own sin

Are you scared to forgive  
Are you afraid to live  
Are you afraid to die  
Do you think it's all a lie

Kat joined in on the chorus, both playing her guitar and singing with me.

 _To live  
When you think you're dying  
To laugh  
When you feel like crying  
To stand  
When you think you're gonna fall  
It's just fear after all  
It's only fear after all_

It went back to just me singing, and I closed my eyes. I pictured Spencer in front of me instead of the audience, and I couldn't help but smile as I thought of him. I placed one hand on my stomach, thinking of the child inside.

 _Are you afraid you'll be alone  
Are you scared to pick up the phone  
Are you scared of the past  
Do you think that you might crash  
Do you think you're in too deep  
Are you afraid to sleep  
Are you scared there's no stability  
Are you afraid of your own fragility_

 _To live_  
 _When you think you're dying_  
 _To laugh_  
 _When you feel like crying_  
 _To stand_  
 _When you think you're gonna fall_  
 _It's just fear after all_  
 _It's only fear_

 _To mend_  
 _When you're think you're breaking_  
 _To strength_  
 _When you know you're shaking_  
 _To pray_  
 _When your back's against the wall_  
 _It's only fear after all_

 _Are you scared of the end_  
 _Are you scared to begin_  
 _Are you scared of the start_  
 _Do you think they'll break your heart_  
 _Do you think they'll break your heart_

 _To live_  
 _When you think you're dying_  
 _To laugh_  
 _When you feel like crying_  
 _To stand_  
 _When you think you're gonna fall_  
 _It's just fear after all_  
 _It's only fear after all_  
 _It's only fear_

 _The only fear is fear itself_  
 _The only fear is fear itself_  
 _The only fear is fear itself_

 _It's only fear_

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

The song ended, and I couldn't stop smiling. Even though I had never heard the song before, I still knew that Ariel had written it because of everything that had happened. And as Garcia and I sat there, I realized something. Ariel was right.

Its only fear after all.

 **Thank you to all of you who read, and a special thanks to ahowell1993, ripon, tannerose5, Momochan77, SakuraKoi, tlcroft, and Storylover00 for their reviews!**

 **Also, the little scene between Kat and Jimmy Kimmel was something that I found on Tumblr.**


	17. After the Sun Sets

**A/N~ This chapter starts at the end of the episode "Jones"**

 **Okay, guys, so this chapter is extra special for one reason: the song in it is a brand new piece of music that one of my friends wrote and recorded herself. It is called After the Sun Sets, and is by the amazingly talented Natalie Lain. It has just come out on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify, and so if you like the song, go and check her out! Thanks to Natalie for letting me use her song in this!**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Spencer was down in New Orleans still with the rest of the team, and it was that time of year again.

The anniversary of my sister's death.

Kat had been staying over since he left anyway, because this was his first case back with the team since they had gone after Tobias Hankel. I was constantly worrying about him and whether he was going to be okay. I had worried about that before the Hankel case as well, but now I had added in a new fear - that if something did happen to him, no one would let me know until it was too late.

Spencer had called me first thing this morning apologizing like crazy for not being there, but I had told him that it was alright. The band had come over instead, and I was glad. The guys hadn't really known Amelia that well, other than from the stories that the rest of us had told them. But Kat had grown up with me, and as a result, knew my sister almost as well as I did.

I had pulled out the old boxes of Amelia's things, and we were all sitting around, looking at old pictures and retelling the old stories.

We had just stopped laughing over the story of Amelia, Kat and I trying to make a cake for Kat's mother's birthday when Finn found it.

"Hey mermaid." he called from where he was spread out on the floor.

"Yeah?" I asked him, wiping the tears away from my eyes. Combining the emotions from my sister's death with the hormonal imbalance of pregnancy was something that I never wanted to do again.

"Have you seen this before?" he asked, pulling out a CD from the bottom of one of the boxes.

I looked at it curiously, sure that I had gone through every inch of those boxes at one point or another. But I would have noticed that disc, so I must have missed something.

"No, I haven't." I said, getting up from my spot on the couch. Finn handed me the disc, and I went over to the sound system that Spencer and I had set up on one part of the kitchen counter as soon as we moved into the place.

I popped in the disc, and there were a few seconds of silence before the music started.

My vision went blurry and I could barely breathe after I heard the person start to sing, and when I looked at Kat, she was tearing up too.

 _You're bright breathing in my soul_

 _I know I_

 _I am getting old_

 _I want more than I have time for_

 _But time slips by and then you have to go_

It was my sister, Amelia, singing.

 _I will love you after the sun sets for me_

 _I will love you you live forever in me_

 _I will love you after the sun sets for me_

 _I will love you when we're nothing to anything_

 _Live for me for what I leave behind_

 _Cause I just need at least that piece of mind_

 _Your heart's the kind that shouldn't have to stop beating_

 _It hurts that all our moments here are fleeting_

 _I will love you after the sun sets for me_

 _I will love you you live forever in me_

 _I will love you after the sun sets for me_

 _I will love you when we're nothing to anything_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will_

 _After_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will love you after the sun_

 _I will_

 _After_

As the song ended, I finally was able to breathe again. Amelia was the first one to teach me music, and so finding this after seven years without her was… difficult, to say the least.

Basically, I collapsed on the floor in tears, and I wasn't sure that Kat was all that far behind - at least she managed to stay on her feet.

8888

It was two days later when I got a surprise call from our record label.

"Ari, honey, we _love_ the new track that you came up with!" the production manager on the other end gushed. "I mean, its a lot different than the usual stuff that Undiscovered Nemesis writes, but we love it anyways!"

I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it for a second before putting it back to my ear. "I'm sorry, but what?" I asked. "What song?"

"The new one, silly." the woman said, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying anything I'd regret. She was far too cheerful for anyone's good. "It was, umm…" I could hear her shuffling papers for a moment before she said anything else. "After the Sun Sets." my heart skipped a beat, and her next words came out fuzzy. "But who is Amelia Ross? I mean, I'm guessing she's related to you, of course, but other than that… anyways, you guys normally write your own songs…"

Her voice droned on, but I didn't hear anything else, until I felt someone shake my shoulders.

I snapped back into reality to see my husband looking down at me in concern. "Ariel, honey, are you okay?" he asked me.

I thought about it for a second, and once I got an answer, I told him.

"Yeah." I said, giving him a watery smile. "Yeah, I think I am."

8888

It was a few days later when I finally got the chance to swing by Finn and Lee's place. Lee was the one to answer the door, and smiled at me.

"Hey mermaid." He said. "What's up?"

"Where's Finn?" I asked, pushing past him.

"Sure, come on in." he said, giving me a look. "What's up with the outfit?"

I looked down at the baggy sweats that I was wearing and blushed. "I just didn't feel like trying, okay?" In reality, I was starting to get a baby bump, and it was freaking me out a bit. So I was overcompensating slightly.

Lee stared at me for a second before he shrugged. "Whatever. Finn's just getting dressed."

"He's in there?" I asked, pointing towards their bedroom. Lee nodded, and I headed for the room. He didn't even bother trying to stop me - we had changed in the same room together enough times over the years that it didn't even phase us anymore.

Finn was just pulling on his pants when I walked in. "Hey kiddo." he said, and I rolled my eyes.

"Please don't make me repeat that whole conversation… _again._ " I told him.

"Alright, fine." he said, digging around for a moment before pulling out a plain black t-shirt and putting it on. "So what's up?"

"You know what." I said, folding my arms over my chest. "You sent Amy's song to the record label, didn't you?"

"Yeah." he said, and I was actually stunned - I didn't really expect him to admit to doing it, especially not that quickly. "Yeah, I did."

"That wasn't yours to send, Finn."

"I'm not going to apologize, if that's what you want." he told me. "Ari, she deserves to have that song out there. It's beautiful - amazing. So, yeah, I sent it to the record label. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

I huffed, but I could see his point. And, to be honest, I wasn't as mad about it as I had originally was. It kind of made sense, really - Amy had helped me to start as a musician, and she was still affecting my music even now.

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5, tlcroft, zebra126, and Momochan77. Also, please check out Natalie's song!**


	18. The Phone Call

**A/N~ I'm sorry. I am so, so, sorry. This takes place during the episode "Legacy". We're almost to season three, folks!**

 **This - and the next few - chapters are rated M. Triggers abound here, so please be careful.**

 **All statistics come from the Association for Safe International Road Travel.**

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

The worst moment of my life came when we were in the middle of delivering a profile to the Kansas City police department.

Up until that point, everything had been perfect. Ariel and I had gone to her last ultrasound together, and we were planning on telling everyone about the baby over the weekend. She was at fourteen weeks now, and you could just barely see the beginnings of a bump. She thought she was going to get huge, but I didn't care. No matter what, she would always be perfect to me.

8888

We were sitting around the bullpen, looking over the different notes that Detective McGee had made on the missing transients.

"Hey, hey, kid - we do not need a vocabulary lesson right now." Morgan said, and I almost blushed. I was just so happy these days that I honestly didn't know what to do with myself. Most of the time that extra energy was expelled in the form of rambling explanations of facts and statistics - something that my wife thought was adorable most of the time - or… then I really did start to blush as thoughts of… _other_ activities ran through my head.

8888

We walked into the police department, and an older black man walked over to us. "The BAU." he said, pointing to us.

Gideon nodded. "I'm Jason Gideon." he said, shaking the man's hand before gesturing back at the rest of us. "Agents Morgan, Prentiss, and Dr. Reid."

"Captain Al Wright." the man said, introducing himself. Hotch walked over to us.

"If you, uh, want to get your squad together, Captain, we could start giving the profile." he said.

"Already?" he asked, looking surprised.

"We've been working on it all day." I told him.

"Oh have you now?"

"Just out of an abundance of preparedness, yeah." I replied. I knew that I was being rude, but I didn't really care all that much. This man had been willing to write off the fact that sixty-three people had disappeared.

"Give me a few minutes, guys." he told us before walking off.

Hotch moved closer before saying, "I'm not sure if he's really okay with this, or he's sure we're wrong and wants to see us embarrass ourselves."

As soon as all of the different officers were gathered, we got started.

"We're going to provide a psychological profile of the man we're looking for." Hotch began. "It contains some unusual, specific personality traits that someone out there is bound to recognize."

"Which will make him relatively easy to locate." Gideon continued.

My phone rang, and I answered it automatically, thinking that it was Garcia calling with some information about our UnSub.

But when there was no bubbly voice sounding in my ear as soon as I answered, I asked, "Hello?"

An unfamiliar voice asked hesitantly, "Is this Spencer Reid?"

I could feel my heart drop, even though I had no idea why it did. "Yes, it is." I said, even as I motioned to the others to keep going and left the room.

"This is Dr. Shadia Sheikh - I'm with Saint Elizabeth's Hospital. I'm sorry to inform you that your wife, Ariel, was admitted earlier…there was a car accident..."

The entire world froze for a moment as I processed her words. Although I logically knew that it was impossible, I still could have sworn that the floor had fallen out from under me.

Before I could even think, I was running back into the bullpen area of the police station. "Hotch!" I yelled, interrupting them in the middle of the profile.

"Reid, what the hell are -" I cut off Gideon, not even caring anymore.

"Hotch, I need to go - Ariel…" I stopped then as the full weight of the situation hit me. "Oh, God…"

"Reid." Morgan was immediately standing next to me, his concern written all over his face. "Whats happened?"

"Ariel's been in a car accident." I mumbled, before looking at him in a full on panic. "Morgan, I have to get back to Quantico. _Now._ "

"Of course, kid." Morgan said calmly. "Just breathe, okay? You head to the airport, and I'll get Garcia to get you a ticket on the first plane back."

I nodded, starting to get at least some of my mental facilities back in order. I got up from where I sat - I didn't even remember sitting down, to be honest - and headed for the door.

"Right." I said, and just as I was about to go out the door, JJ called me back.

"And Reid?" she asked. I turned around and looked at her. "Keep us posted."

I gave her a half-hearted smile, and nodded. "I will."

8888

I made it to the airport and went to the airline counter, shoving several people out of my way. They all started complaining, but I apologized and kept going.

"Excuse me." I said to the woman behind the counter. "There should be a ticket reserved for me - Dr. Spencer Reid?"

She barely even spared me a glance before saying, "I'm sorry, sir, but there are no tickets reserved under that name."

"You haven't even looked!" I said, starting to get angry. I had no idea what kind of condition my wife and child were in, and the not knowing was driving me mad.

She actually looked up from her computer that time, but the bored expression was still fixed to her face. "I'm sorry, sir, but there are no tickets reserved under that name." she repeated.

I didn't even bother to respond to her this time and moved away from the counter as I pulled out my phone and dialed Garcia.

I didn't give her any time to say one of her witty opening remarks. "I thought you were getting me a plane ticket, Garcia." I snapped.

"Well, Reid, its kind of hard to get a ticket when there are none available."

I hung up on her then, and felt guilty for it as soon as I did. None of this was Garcia's fault….

But now I had to figure out how I was going to get back home.

8888

"Please, let me buy your ticket off of you." I begged one person after another. "I'll give you the full price, plus an extra… three thousand dollars."

Most of the people were looking at me like I was insane, and I didn't blame them - I was a wreck. I was nervous and twitchy, and thousands of different outcomes kept running through my brain, each one worse than the last. It was times like these that I hated my eidetic memory, because now every single crime scene photo involving cars was seen in my mind's eye, and every statistic that I had ever read about automobile accidents was running through my brain.

 _Nearly 1.3 million people die in road crashes each year, on average 3,287 deaths a day._

 _An additional 20-50 million are injured or disabled._

 _More than half of all road traffic deaths occur among young adults ages 15-44._

Finally I just collapsed in a seat, after being told in no uncertain terms to go away for about the thirtieth time.

"Excuse me, dear." someone with a clear British accent asked me. "But why exactly are you so anxious to get on that plane?"

I looked over to see an older woman with short blonde hair and kind brown eyes. She held out a cup of something to me, and I took it without even thinking about it. "Sorry." she said, "But I couldn't help but notice that you looked a bit upset, so I thought I'd get you a cuppa."

"Thank you." I said softly, and took a sip. It was very strong, and very sweet, with just a hint of milk, and I took a second to enjoy the heat settling in my stomach.

"There now, isn't that better?" she asked, and I nodded. "Now then, what seems to be the trouble dear?"

"Its my wife." I told her, and she looked shocked for a moment before I corrected myself. "No, thats not what I meant. My wife's not the trouble - she's in trouble. She was in a car accident back home, and I need to get back there as soon as possible. I just... " I paused for a second to wipe the tears off of my face before continuing. "We're having a baby." I told her softly. "And this is my first real chance at having a family. I just… I don't know what I would do if anything happened to either one of them." I looked at her then, and blushed slightly. "Sorry, I don't know why I'm telling you this."

She smiled at me. "Oh, I don't know, dear." she answered. "Maybe you just needed someone to talk to. I have to admit, it's lovely to hear about a man who is so devoted to his wife - isn't it, dear?" she said, and then I realized that someone was standing over me. He was tall, with curly dark hair and pale eyes.

"Yes, it is." he said absently, and I felt slightly self-conscious as he looked me over. "So tell me, Doctor Reid, why don't you just use your credentials to commandeer someone's ticket?" he asked me suddenly.

I started a bit and felt my hand drift towards my gun. "How do you know who I am?" I asked him suspiciously.

He rolled his eyes at me. "Oh please, don't bother pulling out your gun." he said. "That would be a stupid waste of time. I merely read your identification card." he said, pointing at my chest.

"Right." I said, relaxing slightly. "Sorry about that."

"Its fine." he said, and then held out a ticket to me. "Here. Take it."

I looked at him in shock. "What?" I asked, not comprehending him for a moment.

"Take the ticket." he repeated. "I'm sure that she would offer hers instead, but she's too busy crying right now."

I looked over to the older woman, and the man was right - she was sitting there dabbing at her eyes with a lace-edged handkerchief.

"Thank you." I told him, and started to dig around in my pockets for my wallet. "Here… how much was it?"

"What, the ticket?" he asked, and I nodded. "Don't bother. I can get a new one. Or rather, my brother can."

That statement confused me more than I'd admit, but I ignored it, because that was when they started calling for people to board the plane.

"Thank you so much." I told him again, and he rolled his eyes at me. "Seriously, if there's anything that I can do for you…"

He cut me off there. "There is." he said. "Keep Mrs. Hudson company."

 **A/N~ So I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock made an appearance. Also, before you guys get too mad - the original plan was ten times worse than what is now going to happen, but I decided that I couldn't do that to you.**

 **Thank you to Momochan77, ahowell1993, and tlcroft for their reviews!**


	19. Catching Up

**Once again, trigger warnings here! I will mark off the passages that contain the warnings, so that way if these triggers affect you, you can just skip over them.**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I woke up completely disoriented, and it took a few seconds for my vision to clear completely. I squinted as I looked around the room - everything was so bright. The entire room was white, with absolutely no decorations or furniture whatsoever.

"Hey kiddo." A familiar voice said, and I immediately tensed up. I looked around to see someone that I hadn't seen for years - a tall and willowy frame, long brown hair, and green eyes. She was dressed in a white sundress sprinkled with blue flowers, and a tan fringe vest, with no shoes on. That was something that I had always teased her about - _the 70s called,_ I would tell her. _They want their fashion sense back._

"Amelia." I whispered, running over to hug her. She held onto me as tightly as I held onto her, and I could feel the tears filling my eyes as the scent of her perfume filled my nostrils.

"Its alright, hon." she cooed as she smoothed my hair. "Everything's going to be okay."

It took me awhile to calm down, but once I did I was able to actually get a look at my sister. "God, Amy, you look amazing!" I told her, and she laughed as she looked me over as well.

"And look at you!" she cried. "God, you're so grown up now!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "I look the same…" then I remembered.

 **BEGINNING OF TRIGGERS!**

 _Walking through the front door for the last time with Spence by my side as we went to grab the last of my things._

 _The light was on in Amelia's old room, and I was concerned. She was supposed to be at college, and if she had come back for some reason she would've told me._

 _I walked into the room, hoping to finally introduce my sister to my boyfriend - not that I had actually called Spencer that to his face, at least not yet. He would have freaked out to no end…_

 _All thoughts of my sweet genius flew out of my head when I saw what was waiting for me in her room._

 _Amelia was laying there on the floor. There was blood everywhere…. I screamed even as I ran over to her lifeless body._

 **Trigger section completed.**

"Oh my god." I said as it all started to come back to me. "Amelia… you're dead."

"Its okay." Amelia said, moving to hug me again.

"Oh my god, am I dead?" I asked her, and she smiled at me softly.

"No, honey, you're not dead." she told me gently. "There was an accident, remember?"

I pressed a hand to my forehead as I tried to remember. "I think so… I was walking to the grocery store because we only needed a couple of things. Then I went to cross the street, and a car… it came out of nowhere…" I looked at my older sister. "How am I not dead?" I asked her.

"You almost were." she admitted. "If the ambulance had arrived even just a minute later than it did, you would have died. As it is, you're in a coma."

"A coma?" I asked her, incredulous, but then laughed in spite of everything that was happening. "Well I guess that explains all of this."

Amelia laughed at me before responding. "Yeah, it probably does."

"So what are you, my 'spirit guide' or something?" I asked, trying to make a joke out of it just so I wouldn't start crying.

"Not exactly. I'm just here to keep you company."

"For how long?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Until you wake up, I guess."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I rushed into the hospital, heading for the reception desk immediately. "I'm looking for Ariel Reid." I told the nurse breathlessly. "Please, I'm her husband."

She smiled kindly at me. "Alright sir, just try and calm down a bit, ok?"

"Calm down?" I asked, her words having the opposite effect on me. "My wife is in the hospital after a car accident, and I have no idea if she or our _baby_ is alright! _Don't_ tell me to calm down!"

"Sir, please just -" I cut her off.

"Please, I need to get to her, now." I begged her, and something in my face must have swayed her, because she sighed before starting to type away on her keyboard.

"She's still in surgery right now, sir." she said after a minute, and I sighed in relief. "A doctor will let you know as soon as she's out of surgery."

"Thank you." I told her, and then hurried over to a seat to wait.

It took me about half an hour to remember to call everyone and let them know what had happened.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

"So…" Amelia started, and I groaned. She had that gleam in her eyes, the one that - after all these years - I still remembered meant trouble. "Who's the lucky man?" she asked, grabbing ahold of my left hand and examining my rings.

I actually felt my face heat up a bit, which was more than a little bit weird, considering that I technically didn't have a body at the moment. "His name is Spencer." I told her. "I had been hoping to introduce you two when…" I let the sentence trail off, but she knew what I was going to say.

"I'm sorry." she said softly, and even though I knew she meant it, I couldn't help but get angry anyway.

"You left me." I accused. "You left me alone."

"You're right." she said, and I was honestly disappointed. I had been sort of hoping for a fight to happen… "I'm so sorry, Ari."

"Yeah, well, you should be." I said, but regretted it instantly. "Oh crap, Amelia, I'm so sorry." I said, pulling her into a hug.

"It's alright, Ariel." she murmured. "I know you didn't mean it."

We just sat there for a bit, holding onto each other, before either one of us thought of letting go.

"So I heard the song you wrote for me." Amelia told me after awhile.

I smiled. "Yeah?" I asked. "What did you think of it?"

"I love it, silly." she said, but then something was… strange. Her voice sounded different, like it was someone else talking. "I love you."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

"I love you." I whispered softly as I stared at my wife. The surgery had been successful, but the doctors had put her into a drug-induced coma for now. I had never seen Ariel look this fragile before - she was paler than ever, and lay completely still. The only sounds in the room were my breathing, and the beeps and hums coming from the machines that were hooked up to her.

"Oh my gosh." I heard a small voice say from behind me, and I turned around to see both Kat and Garcia standing in the doorway.

"Garcia, what are you doing here?" I asked, confused. I had called Kat and the guys, but I hadn't called her - how did she know what had happened?

"Um… JJ…" she seemed to be frozen in shock, but snapped out of it after a second. "JJ called and told me what happened… and I started searching for recent hospital admissions and oh my god what happened?" she finished. Kat still had yet to say a single word, but she had moved out of the doorway and into a chair on the other side of the bed.

"There was an accident." I said, my throat dry. I couldn't even look at them - I just kept looking at Ariel's hand as I ran my thumb over it. "A hit-and-run. The baby… the baby's fine…" I was babbling at that point, with almost no idea what I was saying.

Garcia gasped, and Kat just sighed in relief. I looked up at her, and I saw the tears in her eyes. She came around the bed and just collapsed in my lap, throwing her arms around me.

I stroked her hair, just holding onto her and remembering the last time that we had been in this situation:

 _I was sitting by Ariel's bedside, just holding her hand when Kat and one of her brothers, Daniel, came in._

" _Oh my god..." she said softly, walking over._

" _I don't know what happened." I told her. There were tears running down my cheeks. "I… I went to check on her, to make sure she was ok… she was still so upset, after Amelia's death, you know? A-and she was just… she was just laying there…"_

 _I couldn't look at her face in its bruised and beaten state - not because I was disgusted, but because I knew that if I looked at it, I would never be able to forget it._

I came out of the flashback just in time to hear Garcia asking about the baby.

"We were going to tell you soon…" I murmured, before looking at Kat. "But how did you know?"

She gave a small smile. "I didn't, not really. But once I saw her sneaking peanut butter onto the plane…" she seemed to remember then that Garcia was in the room as well, because she cut herself off.

I laughed, though, and Garcia looked at us in confusion. "Peanut butter?" she asked.

I nodded. "Ariel hates the stuff - I could never understand why."

Kat climbed off of my lap and moved around to the other side of the bed.

"Come on, _mei-mei._ " she said softly. "Wake up. Please."

 **Hello my lovelies! So just so you know,** _ **mei-mei**_ **is Chinese for 'little sister'. The nicknames that Kat uses are something that my friends and I do - we have somewhere around forty different nicknames for each other, and they all get used frequently. So the nicknames that you've seen so far are nowhere near all of them.**

 **Also, I have a question for you all: which of the songs that have been used so far was your favorite? Please let me know - it'll come up again later.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, Momochan77, KirkSauber, KiaOraToGube, Gossamermouse101, Guest, tannerose5, and tlcroft for their reviews!**


	20. Hit-and-run

**A/N~ Hello my fuzzy friends! Apologies, but this is a really odd chapter. Also, there is a lot of vulgarity in certain parts.**

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

It had been a week now since I had gotten the phone call that changed my life for the worse. Ariel was still in a coma, and the doctors said that they weren't going to pull her out of it for almost another three weeks, at the earliest. If I had been anyone else, I would have been worrying about the medical bills and insurance coverage and things like that - not that I wasn't. But this was one of those times where the whole 'rock star persona' came in handy. Because of it, we had tons of money stored away - some of it was already starting off a trust fund for the baby, but a bunch of it was now going towards getting her the best medical care that money could buy.

Luckily - or unluckily, depending on how you looked at it - we were so busy with cases for the first week that no one on the team really had a chance to drop by and see Ariel. Which was good, because that meant they wouldn't get suspicious about all of the extra security and things that Undiscovered Nemesis's record label had placed around the building once they found out what happened.

It was unlucky for me, though. The entire time that we were gone I would do one of two things: I would either obsessively worry about my wife, or I would throw myself into the cases completely, barely spending anytime sleeping or eating. The only time that I didn't spend working on whatever case we had at the moment was spent looking over the information that Garcia had been able to find on the driver in the hit-and-run that had landed her in the hospital in the first place.

She hadn't been able to find out that much, though. It was a later model sedan, and while there were several security cameras in the area, the ones that were pointed at the scene only showed very blurry images of the car's license plate.

We had just gotten back from our third case in a week, and Hotch let us know that we weren't going to be taking on anymore cases for at least a day or two, which was a huge relief. It meant that I finally had a chance to go and visit Ariel.

It was almost time for visiting hours to be over by the time I arrived, but luckily I was allowed to spend the night since I was her husband. I checked in at the desk before heading up to the correct floor, giving the security guards an awkward wave as I walked by.

I paused for a moment in the doorway and just looked at my wife. It was strange seeing her like this, so empty and almost… lifeless. My Ariel was always so full of life and energy, always up to something. Now she just… laid there.

I walked over and sat down next to her, taking a second to feel her pulse, just to reassure myself.

"Hi honey." I told her softly. "Sorry that I haven't been here that much - we've had case after case this week. Luckily Kat and the guys have been able to come and see you instead." It was awkward talking to her without her talking back - or even responding.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Time passed strangely here. After the few hours - although, as far as I knew a month could have passed - Amelia had shown me screens that connected to the real world outside, and so every once in a while, I would check in on what was happening.

Most of the time, all the screens showed was my body in the hospital - which still sounded immensely strange - so I hadn't been paying much attention to it until I heard Spencer's voice.

" _Hi honey."_ he said softly. I hurried over to the screens, with Amelia hot on my heels. " _Sorry that I haven't been here that much - we've had case after case this week. Luckily Kat and the guys have been able to come and see you instead."_

"He's actually kinda hot." Amelia said. "You know, in a geeky, nerdy way."

I rolled my eyes, deciding to focus on my husband instead. I nearly teared up when I saw how upset he was.

" _You've been here for -"_ his voice cut out, although I could still see his lips moving.

I turned to look at my sister. "What happened?" I asked. "Why can't I hear him?"

She looked irritated, which surprised me. "You aren't supposed to know how long you've been here." she explained. "It's to help keep you from going insane while you're here."

I hated her explanation, but decided to ignore it for the moment - I'd bring it up again later on.

" _I miss you, sweetheart. I can't wait for you to wake up - I don't remember the last time that we were apart for this long, other than when you were on tour, I mean. Because then we could still talk on the phone, and visit each other, and I always knew that you were okay. But now we can't talk, obviously, and I don't know what's going to happen."_

I laughed a bit at Spencer's rambling - it was something I had sorely missed.

"How much longer am I going to be here?" I wondered.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

Another week or so had passed before Garcia got any concrete information on the driver from the hit-and-run. It was one of the rare days where we didn't have anything to do, and so it was spent working on the paperwork that tended to pile up while we had cases.

Garcia came running out into the bullpen, moving as fast as she could in her heels. "Reid!" she called out, getting everyone's attention as she waved a file in the air. "Reid, I finally got it!"

I jumped up from my chair, making Morgan move back quickly from the corner of my desk, where he had been trying to slip some of his paperwork in with mine. "Let me see it!" I demanded, and she handed over the file.

It took me all of a minute, if that, to finish going through the information. "Garcia, once I'm done with this, I'm taking you out to lunch. Somewhere nice, my treat." I said quickly, before racing up the stairs to Hotch's office.

"What's going on, Reid?" he asked me as soon as I made it through the door.

"Garcia found the identity of the guy who hit Ariel." I told him.

A flicker of something crossed his face. "Then forward it onto the local PD." he said.

"Hotch, you can't seriously expect me to sit here and do nothing!" I argued.

"That's exactly what I expect." he said, but something was different. I had seen Hotch pissed off before - this wasn't one of those times.

Although, now I was starting to get pissed off. "This is ridiculous!" I protested. "If it was Haley who had been hurt, would you be sitting here doing nothing?"

That was what seemed to get through to him. "Go." he said, motioning towards the door. "Take Morgan with you."

I gave him a quick smile. "Thanks, Hotch." I said, before heading out the door.

8888

The local police department had picked up the guy by the time that we made it down to the station, but after explaining to their captain exactly why we were there, he was willing to let us do the interrogation.

Morgan and I went straight into the interrogation room, where one of the detectives had left the man responsible. Just from the photo of the man, I had known that he wasn't any good - although I didn't need a photo to know that. Just knowing what he had done to my wife and child was enough for me to know what kind of person he was.

As soon as we walked in, he started talking.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked. "I didn't do nothin'!"

"You didn't do anything." I corrected.

"That's what I said." he replied.

"Actually, you didn't. You used a double negative - a negative plus a negative equals a positive - so what you actually said was 'I did do everything'. Would you like to make that your confession?" I asked.

He blinked. "What? What confession?"

Morgan sat down across from the man. "Mr. Jones, I'm Special Agent Derek Morgan, this is Dr. Spencer Reid. We're with the FBI."

"The FBI?" he asked. "What the hell does the FBI want with me?"

"Mr. Jones, where were you two weeks ago, on May tenth?" Morgan asked. Immediately, he started to look anxious, like he wanted to be anywhere else.

"I… I don't remember." he said. That was when I started to get mad.

"Really?" I asked, before slamming my hands down on the metal table. "Because I know where you were. You were out driving - I don't know where and I really don't care - when you hit a woman with your car." I was getting in his face by that point. "She was four months pregnant, and you hit her with your car!"

I felt someone tugging on my arm, and it took me a second to realize that it was Morgan. "Calm down, Reid." he said softly, so that the man couldn't hear him.

"You really expect me to calm down?" I hissed.

"No, I don't." he replied. "But you need to at least pretend, alright kid?"

I knew that he was right, but that didn't mean that I had to like it. "Fine." I muttered.

"I don't know what you're talkin' about, man!" he argued. "I didn't hit any broad! And even if I did, why's it any of your damn business?"

"Because that woman is the wife of an FBI agent, and is now in a coma. No one knows if she'll ever come out of it, or if their child is going to live long enough to ever even meet its parents." I leaned over to look at him. "So ask me again why it's any of our business."

He sneered then, and the next words out of his mouth surprised me, "That dumb bitch?" he snorted. "And here I thought she was just some hooker."

I had never understood the phrase 'seeing red' until that very moment. It was so bad that I had to leave the interrogation room to keep from doing anything that might have cost me my job. Luckily for me, Morgan waited until I had calmed down and came back into the room before he continued.

"I thought you said that you didn't do it." Morgan stated.

"I didn't!" the man said, then clarified. "I didn't do it, I mean."

"Then how would you know what she looked like?" I asked, understanding what he was getting at.

The man stopped scowling as a look of panic crossed his face. "I didn't - I mean -" he started stuttering.

"That's what I thought." I said, but it was strange. I had thought that once we caught the person who was responsible for putting my wife in a coma, that it would stop hurting as much. That I'd feel some sort of relief.

But nothing had changed - I still felt empty.

 **A/N~ Thank you to ahowell1993, Momochan77, raspberry dreams, tannerose5, tlcroft, and KirkSauber for their reviews! This story is now at its twentieth chapter, and is still one of my favorite things that I've written. I'm really not sure how much longer it will go, but don't worry - there are at least a few more chapters already written, and then I still have to finish up this part of the Reid family's story.**


	21. Goodbye, Gideon

JJ walked into Gideon's office, hoping that he would be there. It had been two weeks - two weeks since Gideon had taken time off, and two weeks since Hotch had been put on suspension. They were both supposed to be back today, but so far no one had seen either of them.

Instead of finding the older profiler, though, she found the younger doctor, asleep in a chair.

"Reid?" she asked, and he looked up at her, still half asleep. "What're you doing here?"

"Uh…" he seemed to realize where he was, and then checked his watch. "Gideon didn't answer his phone." he said, his eyes still half-closed in sleep. "I called him twice."

JJ fixed her hold on the folders that she had tucked under her arm, giving him a second to compose himself. "Have you been here all night?" she asked him awkwardly. She loved the young man like a younger brother, she really did. But sometimes he did things that even she couldn't understand.

He nodded. "We were supposed to play chess."

"Here?"

"Yeah." he said, tucking his hair back behind his ears. "He hasn't been back to his apartment since, um…" he trailed off, but JJ nodded.

"Right." she said. "And what about you? Have you gone back to your place since…" she trailed off as well - it seemed that neither of them were very good at just putting things out in the open.

"Yeah. Yeah, a few times."

She didn't look like she believed him, but decided not to press the issue. "Well, I'm about to brief the team, so…"

He got up out of the chair, silently glad that he hadn't managed to get a stiff neck from sleeping in it all night. "I'll be right there." he said. "Just let me grab some coffee."

8888

The team was clearing out Gideon's office when Section Chief Strauss went up to Hotch's office. There were a few minutes where they tried to figure out what the two were talking about - judging by the fact that Strauss was there at all. As soon as she left the bullpen, Hotch was calling for Reid.

The young doctor looked terrified for a second before he listened to Hotch and headed up to his office.

"Sit down, Reid." the older man requested as the man in question hovered in the doorway. Spencer did as told, and then they just looked at each other for a minute before anything else was said.

"How're you holding up?" Hotch asked.

"I'm sorry?"

Hotch gave him one of his famous looks. "Reid, your wife is in the hospital in a coma. Your _pregnant_ wife. And now Gideon left. So I'll ask you again - how're you holding up?"

Reid slumped down in the chair, and allowed his worries to just pour out of him for the first time in weeks. "We were looking at houses." was the first thing he said. "Ariel thought that our apartment was too small for a growing family, and so we started looking. And now…" he cut himself off with an almost hysterical laugh. "Now, everytime I close my eyes, I worry that I won't have a family when I open them again."

Hotch didn't say anything for several minutes - because really, what could he have said. "Things will get better." was all that he could come up with.

"How's Haley?" the younger man asked, and Hotch felt his carefully constructed mask slip for a second at the mention of his wife. "That bad?"

Hotch contemplated his options - he could lie and say that everything was perfect, or he could come clean. The two men had bonded a lot, being the only married ones on the team, along with Reid needing someone to talk to after the Hankel incident.

"She wants a divorce." he finally revealed, and judging by his expression, Reid was as shocked by the information as Hotch had been when she had first brought it up.

"What?" he asked. "Why?"

Hotch was about to explain it all when there was a knock on the door, and JJ popped her head in. "Hey, we've got a case." she said, and both men stood up.

"All work and no play…" Reid quipped, and for a moment Hotch was afraid that their little talk hadn't done any good. Then he saw the faint hint of a smile on the young genius's face, and he knew that things would truly get better.

All they needed was time.

 **A/N~ I'm so sorry, this chapter was really short - I've been super busy lately. I might end up posting another chapter at some point this week to make up for it - let me know if you approve!**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993** (yes, they all know now) **, tannerose5** (don't worry, I won't! I wouldn't even dream of abandoning it - I was just saying I don't know how many more chapters there will be until this story is completed. There might even be a sequel!) **, Momochan77, and ripon** (he didn't want to, I can tell you that. But it's not like he can take too much time off of work - the team needs their boy genius!)


	22. Sleeping Beauty

_Ariel's P.O.V._

Something felt… different. Like pins and needles covering every inch of my skin, bordering right on the edge of pain.

"What's going on?" I asked Amelia as she walked over to me. Her eyes were rimmed in red, like she had just finished crying, or was about to begin.

"You're waking up." she said. "That's good. You'll see that husband of yours again, and your baby."

"But I won't see you." I realized, and Amy nodded.

"Do me a favor, kiddo." she requested. "If your baby is a girl - _don't_ name her after me. I wasn't exactly the best model to live up to, y'know?" then she smirked. "Besides, I think I'll be fine with you just telling the kid bedtime stories about their Aunt Amy."

I laughed at that, but my mood quickly darkened. If this was the last chance that I would get to see my sister, I was going to make it count. "I just want you to know…" my vision was starting to fade, and everything was going white. "I love you, Amelia…" I whispered.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I waited, my heart in my throat as the doctors worked to bring Ariel out of the drug-induced coma that they had put her in. I didn't even realize that I was pacing up and down the hallway until Finn came over and put his hand on my shoulder.

"Hey g-man, just relax." he told me softly. "It isn't gonna help the mermaid if you're hyperventilating."

I didn't like it, but I had to admit he had a point. "I'm just scared, Finn." I admitted. "This has made me realize just what a horrible place this world is."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "This is what made you realize that?" he asked. "Not your job?"

I shot him a dirty look. "You know what I mean." I said, and he laughed - although I had a feeling that the laughter was meant for the look I gave him, instead of what I was saying. "I just never realized… we see so much crap every day, you know? And I guess I just never realized that people with no intent can do just as much damage as those who intend to do damage. A drunk driver who doesn't stop after hitting someone with their car can do just as much damage as some psycho with a knife."

Finn nodded, and as I saw the pain in his eyes, I knew that he understood what I meant.

That was when a doctor came over to us. "Ariel Reid?" she asked, and I hurried over, with the rest of the gang following along behind me.

"Yes?" I asked. "How is she?

There was a tense moment when she didn't say anything, but then she smiled. "She's fine. Should be waking up any moment now." she said, and I didn't hear what she said next due to the pure relief that washed over me like a wave.

Luckily Finn and Lee were standing there, listening to her for me. The team wasn't there, because they had all been called out on a case, so it was just family there.

"Can I see her?" I asked.

The doctor smiled and nodded. "I don't see why not. Just don't get her too excited - she's going to get tired very easily at first."

Kat and Gabe walked over just in time to hear the last bit of what the doctor said. "Yeah, doc." Gabe said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "So no wild monkey sex for at least a week or two." He grunted in pain as Kat punched his side in response to his comment.

The doctor tried to hide her blush as she led us to the room where my wife was waiting.

8888

I was sitting right next to her when she started to move in the hospital bed.

"Amelia…" she whispered, and I would have been confused if I gave myself time to think about it. Instead, I pushed it to the back of my mind to think about later on, choosing to concentrate on my wife.

"Ariel?" I asked softly, grabbing ahold of her hand. "Can you hear me?"

She groaned and turned her head away from me, making me laugh even as tears of relief ran down my face. "Oh yeah, she's fine." Gabe said dryly. It was a well-known fact that my wife was even less of a morning person than I was, and it usually took several cups of industrial-strength coffee just to get her out of bed and into the shower.

She turned her head again - in my direction this time - as her eyes fluttered open.

"Hey there handsome." she said, her voice barely more than a hoarse whisper. "Miss me?"

I smiled before pulling her into a hug - or at least, as close as I could get to a hug with all of the IV lines and monitors in the way. "More than you could imagine." I said softly.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

"Hey guys." I said weakly, smiling at the rest of our family. Spencer had been quick to reassure me that his team would be there as soon as they could, but that it might be a while since they were out on a case.

I was about to ask how long I had been out, when I saw something that basically answered my question for me.

"Holy shit." I breathed, looking at my stomach - more specifically, the large baby bump that I was now sporting. It had practically doubled in size.

"You've been out for around a month, _mei-mei_." Kat said softly from where she sat next to the bed. Gabe sat next to her, with Finn and Lee on the other side of the bed. Spence had reluctantly joined me on the bed - only after I threatened to get out of the bed if he didn't.

"So everyone knows about the baby now?" I asked, somewhat unnecessarily.

My husband nodded as he smoothed a hand over my belly. "They found out when they came to visit you." he told me.

I smiled, although I was slightly disappointed. I had planned an entertaining way of them all finding out, but maybe I could still figure out a way to use it… but my plotting and planning was put aside when I saw the look in my husband's eye. He had felt the need at every stage of my pregnancy so far to let me know exactly how the baby was doing, along with how far it had developed so far.

You're twenty weeks along." he informed me. "The baby's about ten and a half ounces, and six and a half inches long."

I cooed softly, just as Spencer gasped, stopping his hand on my belly. "What's wrong, killer?" I asked him.

"I just felt a kick." he said softly, and then laughed a second later as we both felt it.

"Doesn't that bother you?" he asked. "I mean… doesn't it feel weird?"

I laughed. "No, of course it doesn't." I told him. "Why, does it freak you out?"

He nodded. "Very much so."

I tried to just laugh it off - I knew that he didn't mean anything by it, it was just another one of my husband's quirks, but it still hurt. He must've noticed, though, because he smiled softly before kissing my forehead. "Don't worry." he said softly. "I'll get used to it, just give me time."

I smiled back, drawing in the scent of him that I had missed like crazy - coffee, old books, and his vanilla shampoo… only that wasn't what he smelled like. I pulled back and smirked up at him.

"Spence," I drawled out slowly. "Have you been using my shampoo?"

He blushed slightly. "I missed you." was his only response, and I couldn't help but pull him in for a kiss after that.

8888

The guys had left to go get food, leaving Kat and I behind. We were just sitting there in awkward silence, which never really happened before.

"I like the new color." I offered, motioning to her hair. "It looks good on you."

Kat gave me a small smile. "Three years is a long time for one hair color."

She pushed a lock of green hair behind her ear and just studied the ground. I was starting to get worried - Kat was never this quiet.

"I'm so sorry." she blurted out suddenly.

I looked at her, confused. "Sorry for what?"

"You had asked me to go with you, remember?" she said quickly, like she was afraid that if she talked any slower, the words wouldn't come out. "But I said no. If I had come with you -"

I cut her off, realizing where she was going with this. "Kat, do you really believe that you could've stopped this from happening?" I asked, and actually managed a slight laugh when she nodded. "Well, I'm pretty sure that you couldn't have. But just in case, your punishment is this: you must fill me in on everything that happened while I was out. And I do mean _everything_."

8888

"So when can I leave?" I asked after a few hours of catching up with everyone. Penelope had joined us about an hour after I woke up, and thirty minutes after that I was sitting up in the bed under my own power.

For some reason, that had everyone looking nervously at each other, before Lee answered. "The doctors said you have to stay for at least a week, maybe two."

I just sat there in stunned silence for a minute before I reacted. "Oh _hell_ no."

 **A/N~ Alright! We've reached the halfway point in Ariel's pregnancy, and to be honest, I never really expected to get this far. So thank you to all of you who have read, followed, favourited, or reviewed. You are the ones that keep me writing.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, Momochan77, tannerose5, tlcroft, and ripon for their reviews!**


	23. Baby Announcement

_Spencer's P.O.V._

Only a few days had passed since Ariel had woken up from her coma. She had refused to stay in the hospital after the first day, saying that she'd heal better in familiar surroundings, and that if they didn't let her out, she would just sneak out somehow.

It was a rare slow day in the BAU, and we were using it to get caught up on paperwork again. I had just taken a break from my third stack of paperwork and was contemplating going to the break room to refill my coffee when I saw something that made a chill run down my spine.

Penelope Garcia, technical analyst extraordinaire, was moving through the bullpen with a positively evil smirk lighting up her face.

"Hey Baby Girl, what'cha got for us?" Morgan asked.

"Actually, I think it's what our boy genius has for us that might be more interesting." Garcia said, and I could feel my cheeks heating up. I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I was also determined to keep from mentioning it for as long as possible. I had hoped to make it through the day without actually having to show the team, but it looked like Ariel had planned ahead. "Ariel just texted me and said that he had something to show us."

Now Prentiss and Morgan were looking at me curiously, and I nearly groaned out loud when I saw JJ walking over as well. Luckily I knew that Hotch would be in his office, so there was little chance of him coming out and seeing what was about to happen.

"What's going on, guys?" JJ asked, and Garcia repeated what she had told us.

They just sat there for a minute, staring at me, and I could feel my face heating up. Finally, I just decided to get it over with, and dug around in my bag for the object. I knew Ariel had put it in there last night, but I had taken it out - so of course, it was back in there when I arrived at the Bureau this morning.

I braced myself for the response, before pulling the object out of my bag.

8888

Aaron Hotchner looked up from the reports that were scattered all over his desk when he heard the raucous laughter coming from the bullpen. He recognized Morgan's booming laugh, as well as JJ's giggling.

He came out of his office and headed down to where most of his team had gathered around Reid's desk, planning on asking them what was going on.

As it turned out, he didn't even need to ask.

A small black teddy bear sat on the desk, wearing a baby's onesie. The onesie was a little gray thing, with the phrase "I'm proof that nerds get laid" written across it in bold. Several ultrasound photos had been attached to the bear's hand with a red ribbon.

Reid was sitting at his desk, trying to keep the rest of the team from seeing how red his face was getting.

Hotch had to stop walking for a minute to try and get himself back under control. It wouldn't do for him to burst out laughing in the middle of the FBI, after all - he had a reputation to maintain.

"Man, kid," Morgan said, being the first to get his laughter under control. "I've said it before and I'll say it again - that girl of yours is somethin' else."

The youngest member of the team's response was muffled slightly as he tried to hide his face. "Don't remind me." he groaned.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

Ariel was waiting for me when I got home.

As soon as I stepped through the door she practically ambushed me, trying to jump on my back. Unfortunately, it didn't work out as well as it could have, mostly because of the large bump where our child was.

"You are evil." I told her, even as I spun her around in my arms and kissed her.

She laughed as she pulled away. "So I'm guessing that that means they were entertained by the bear?" she asked.

"Yes, they were. But I still don't understand why I needed to show them it." I told her, even as I tripped over a stack of boxes.

Ariel laughed as I sat on the floor, slightly stunned. "Are you okay?" she finally managed to get out.

"No thanks to you." I scowled. She stopped laughing almost immediately even as she slowly lowered herself to the ground to sit in my lap.

"It's getting a bit harder to move." she mused even as I ran my hands over the bump, marvelling in how big she was getting. We just sat there like that for awhile until I shifted Ariel off of my lap and onto the floor next to me so that I could stand up and then help her to her feet.

"So I'm assuming," I began as I took my wife by the hand and led her over to the couch. "That you heard back from the realtor?"

Ariel looked at me in surprise. "How'd you know?" she asked, and I gestured back towards the front door - more specifically, the stacks of boxes sitting there.

She groaned and placed a hand on her forehead. "Damn it, kid." she murmured, shooting a fake glare at her stomach. "You're making me lose my mind." I knew what she was referring to, of course - the phenomena known as 'pregnancy brain', where a pregnant woman's memory wouldn't work as well as they were used to.

I just laughed, until she glared at me too. "Don't you start, mister!" she threatened, although anything threatening about it was canceled out by the laughter dancing in her eyes.

"So what did she say?" I asked her, once we had calmed down a bit - although I had already guessed what the answer would be.

"Our offer was accepted." Ariel said with a grin. "We got the house!" she practically squealed as I wrapped my arms around her waist, picking her up off of the ground as I spun her around.

As soon as she was back on the ground, she grabbed my tie and dragged me down so that she could kiss me - something that I went along with quite willingly.

Once we had both run out of oxygen, we broke apart. "C'mon, killer." Ariel said. "Let's irritate the neighbors one more time." she said, before turning and walking away.

I watched her walk away, confused, as I tried to decipher what she meant. Then it hit me, and I felt myself blush slightly as she called out, "You coming?"

 **A/N~ So this chapter was a little more… mature, I suppose, than others have been. But it was very fun for me to write, and I hope you enjoyed the jokes and things. Thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5, Momochan77, tlcroft, gossamermouse101, AnimeLoverJS, and ripon for their reviews! You are all so amazing.**


	24. Crosswords and discussions

_Ariel's P.O.V._

Another month had passed since I woke up from my coma. I was a little over six months along now, and was just starting to hit the 'sexy pregnant lady' stage, much to my husband's delight. Spencer and I were just finishing the packing process of moving, and it was strange to say the least. Almost everything that had been in our apartment was coming to our new house, with only a few exceptions. But at the moment, our apartment - the place that we had called home for the past four years - was almost completely bare. The only things left were our bed, a few pots and pans, and a stack or two of books that neither one of us were willing to pack away. Everything else had been packed away into boxes and was waiting for us at our new house.

I was sitting on the bed, trying to keep from wincing in pain every few seconds when Spencer got home.

"Ariel?" he called out. I got myself out of the bed quickly enough, trying to hide my pain behind a mask. That was one of the few issues that Spencer and I had - I hated when he profiled me, but sometimes he did it without even realizing that he was. So if I needed to hide something, I would put on a mask - just like I did when we were onstage.

It probably wasn't the healthiest way to deal with things, but it worked.

"Hey Spen." I said, rubbing a hand over my face. I had been taking a nap up until about fifteen minutes before he got home.

He walked over and wrapped an arm around my waist, settling his other hand on top of my bump. "I'm sorry." he said softly as he kissed my forehead. "Did I wake you up?"

I shook my head, putting my hand overtop of his on my bump. "No, actually. Your child did."

He chuckled, even as I turned away from him, and his arms wrapped around me from behind. "Why is it _my_ baby when it's bothering you?" he asked.

"Because that's how it works, sweetie." I sassed.

"Well, I know how I can make up for it." he whispered in my ear, and I shivered. _Damn hormones…_

"Oh really?" I smirked. "And just how were you planning on doing that?"

He smiled bashfully at me and held up a bag that I hadn't even noticed. "Lo Mein?" he offered. I normally would have laughed at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation if I wasn't too busy salivating at the thought of the food. Chinese had always been one of my favorites, but ever since I had gotten pregnant, I craved it more than anything. I pretended to think about it for a second, though, before I reached out and grabbed the bag, kissing him on the cheek as well.

"You are forgiven." I decided, as I reached into the brown paper bag and started to pull out the containers. "Chopsticks?" I asked, trying to keep from giggling at the irritated expression on his face.

"You know I can't use them." he said, and I laughed.

"I know, killer." I said. "But its so fun to tease you."

We settled in on the ratted old couch in the living room - it was _definitely_ not coming with us - and I grabbed the remote, switching on Doctor Who. It was one that we had already seen, but we still let it play, just for the background noise.

After a few minutes of blissful silence, I finally asked him what I had been meaning to all week. "So have they started looking for a replacement for Gideon yet?"

It had been almost a month now since Gideon left in the first place, and even though I knew Spencer looked up to the man and wanted him to come back, at least to visit, I was so glad that he was gone. He said that he cared about my husband - and maybe he did - but he didn't act like it. And for that I would never forgive him.

"Yeah." Spencer said softly - this was one topic that he was reluctant to talk about. "I don't know who they're thinking about hiring, though. We probably won't find out until they get hired."

I gasped, faking surprise. "Did the great Spencer Reid just admit to not knowing something?" I said, and he smiled. "Oh, the horror! Oh, the humanity!" I continued, until he was just laughing like there was no tomorrow.

"You're ridiculous." he said, leaning over to steal a kiss.

"But you love me." I reminded him.

"You know I do." he said softly.

I pulled back and smiled up at him, before remembering what I had been wanting to tell him all day.

"The girls want to throw me a baby shower." I said, pouting.

"What's wrong with that?" he asked, confused.

I sighed and put my carton of Lo Mein down on the floor as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me down to lay next to him. "You know. It's going to be all pink and blue and cheery and stupid games." I muttered.

Spencer rubbed his hand over my belly, smiling a little bit more every time he felt the baby kick. "Not if Kat plans it." he suggested after a minute or two of silence. "She knows you better than anyone else, she'd throw a party exactly the way you'd want it to be."

I thought about it for a minute - he was right, of course. Spencer usually was.

"Fine." I muttered. "But just to get them to leave me alone about it."

He laughed, pressing a kiss to my forehead. "That's what you say now." he said softly. "But I have a feeling that once they throw this party for you, you'll be glad that they did."

"Mmmhmm." I hummed, nestling into his side as best I could without either falling off of the couch or shoving him into the crack between the back of the couch and the cushions. "We'll see."

8888

The next morning was when I finally decided to broach the topic that we had both been avoiding for far too long now.

"Sweetie," I began, picking up my cup of tea and crossing over to where Spencer was leaning against the kitchen counter. "What are we going to do when the baby gets here?"

He looked up from the crossword puzzle that he was doing in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked me.

"I mean, we have nothing planned. I'm starting the third trimester, and we know absolutely nothing. I'm going to be home with the baby for the first year or so, yes, but what about after that? What then?" I was starting to panic, and it was getting hard to breathe. I knew that we should have talked about these things much sooner, but we had kept on putting it off for one reason or another. I wasn't going to leave the band behind, and I knew Spencer wasn't willing to leave the Bureau, either.

He just sat there for a minute, looking confused. "I… I guess we'll just wait and see." he said, putting down the puzzle and turning around so that he was facing me. "After all, we still have plenty of time left before we need to decide."

I just smirked for a moment before wincing as I felt the baby stick a foot into my ribcage. " Just maybe not as much time as you thought."

 **A/N~ We're getting close here, people! I will admit, it's getting harder and harder to write the baby fluff as time goes on, and still figure out ways to tie in references to the actual show, so please let me know how I'm doing! Also, to answer one question… let's just say that the apartment walls are really very thin lol.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, Momochan77, tannerose5, gossamermouse101, tlcroft, and ripon for their reviews!**


	25. Scandal

**So I decided to skip the baby shower for now - as I said before, there's really only so much baby fluff that I can write before I start to lose it even more than I already have lol. So here's me trying to get back to the normal flow of murder and mayhem.**

 **During the episode "Seven Seconds".**

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I was still in shock as we watched Katie's aunt get loaded into the back of a squad car. After dealing with a family like that- where the uncle was sexually abusing his niece and the aunt thought that the way to fix things was by killing her niece - my family seemed almost normal by comparison, even with our crazy lives and pasts.

Although, to be honest, now that the case was over, I was ready to go home. Hotch was the first one gone, which was a big change from how things normally went. Since the case involved children, though, I had a feeling that he was going to visit Jack.

I felt bad for Hotch, even though I knew his divorce had nothing to do with me. But it had to be hard for him, seeing his 'domestic life' ending while simultaneously watching mine beginning. And yet he still managed to be so understanding about the whole thing - giving me time off whenever Ariel had doctor's appointments so that I could be there, and ready with any advice that I might need whenever I started to get nervous about my impending fatherhood.

Once we got back to the BAU, I quickly put away the files that I had left scattered all over my desk before hurrying out the door. The rest of the team had been planning something - most likely a celebratory night out - but I just wanted to get home.

Of course, as soon as I did I knew that something was wrong.

Ariel was sitting on the couch with her head in her hands. She kept it there for a minute before wiping at her eyes and looking up at me. Even if she hadn't done that I would've known she had been crying just by the redness of her eyes.

"Ariel?" I asked, worried. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, sweetie." she said, waving it off.

"Please don't try and lie to me. We both know it won't work." I responded, moving over to her. "What is it?"

She sighed, then, and handed me a tabloid that she had been hiding. Splashed across the front cover in lurid red was the headline: _ARI ROSS: REHAB OR WORSE?_

I quickly flipped through the magazine, looking for the article which took me under a minute to finish reading. By the time I was done, though, I knew exactly why she was upset.

According to whoever had written the article, the reason why Undiscovered Nemesis had decided to take time off from going on tours was because their lead singer was on drugs, and needed time to get clean. They had decided that Ari was the one who had to be on drugs as opposed to it being anyone else, because she "had not made a public appearance for the longest amount of time".

Before I had a chance to even think of something to say, she was up off of the couch and ranting. "This is utterly ridiculous! I wouldn't be on drugs even if I _wasn't_ pregnant, because they're evil nasty things that ruin lives!"

"I know why you're upset, Ariel…" I began, but then she turned on me. The biggest surprise, though, was when she turned to me and I saw the tears running down her face.

"Can you?" she asked me sarcastically. "Because unless you've somehow gained the ability to read minds, I don't think you can."

The whole situation was starting to scare me, but I tried to keep calm. I had no idea why she was reacting so violently to the situation, until I realized that her pregnancy hormones must be kicking in. I had counted myself lucky so far, since there hadn't really been an event like this yet.

"Alright." I said slowly, deciding to use the same approach here that I would when dealing with a hostile UnSub. "Why don't you tell me what's wrong? I can't help if I don't know."

She glared at me for a few more seconds, and I was afraid that I had said the wrong thing, before she burst into a fresh round of tears and collapsed on the couch. I quickly moved os that I was sitting beside her, and pulled her into my arms.

We just sat there like that for a little bit, with me holding my wife as sobs wracked her body. After awhile, she managed to get herself back under control and sat up, wiping the tears off of her cheeks. "Damn hormones…" she muttered.

"Now can you tell me what had you so worked up? Because I know it wasn't just the article, you're tougher than that." I asked, and she nodded.

"I guess… I just realized how insane our lives are going to be after the baby is born. Everything is going to change, Spencer."

"Yeah." I told her, still a bit confused. "But we've known that for a while now, so why is it only sinking in now?"

"Because I'm just now realizing… what if they find out?" There must've been something in my face that betrayed how confused I felt, because she quickly elaborated. "What if the paparrazzi find out about us - about you? I don't want to be constantly under observation. Hell, if it came down to it I'd quit the band before I let the paps know about our life. I don't want to have to worry that someday, something might happen to you and it would be all over the tabloids before even I had a chance to know about it." her voice was cracking and hollow by the time she finished, and it was all that I could do to keep from just pulling her into a hug and never letting go.

"That won't happen." I said, trying to soothe her. "Yes, we had to worry about that a lot when the band first started to get popular, but it's been four years since then. If they haven't figured it out by now, I don't think that they ever will."

 **A/N~ That's the end of another chapter! I still don't know if the press will ever find out about Ari Ross's secret life… what do you think? Apologies for the short chapter as well, but things have been really hectic lately. Happy late Thanksgiving to all my American readers as well.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, Momochan77, decadenceofmysoul, tannerose5, ripon, and gossamermouse101 for their reviews!**


	26. First comes love

**A/N~ Takes places during season 3, episode 6, 'About Face'.**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Spencer called me around ten in the morning on Halloween, completely freaking out.

"Ariel, he's here!"

I laughed as I opened up the fridge, seeing what was in it. "Or hello, as people used to say."

"Hi." he amended, but then continued with his freak-out. "But Ariel, it's him! Its David Rossi! _The_ David Rossi!"

"Oh killer," I mused as I pulled out a carton of eggs. I didn't really get all that hungry anymore, but I knew that I had to eat something - if not for me, then for the baby. "You didn't scare him, did you?"

Even through the phone I could tell that he had straightened up. "I don't know what you're talking about." he said calmly.

I snorted. "Yes you do." I argued. "You went off on a babble-fest as soon as you were introduced, didn't you?"

His silence was all the answer I needed.

"It's alright, sweetie." I told him, laughing. "You wouldn't be you if you didn't."

"How's the baby?" he asked, and I scowled, even though I knew he wouldn't be able to see it.

"Your child is currently using my bladder as their own personal punching bag." I grumbled. "I honestly cannot wait for this baby to get out."

"Why is it my baby when its annoying you?" he complained, and I couldn't help but smirk.

"Do you really need me to explain that to you again?" I teased, and he laughed softly.

"There's still another few weeks left, Ari-bear." Spence said softly. "You know that."

"Oh, I'm perfectly aware, Spencer." I said, snapping slightly. "But a girl can dream."

"We have a new case." he told me, and I sighed.

"Alright." I said. "We'll just have to have the Halloween party when you guys get back." I pulled out a frying pan and adjusted the phone so that I could hold it between my shoulder and my ear - that way we could continue talking while I made my food. We talked for a little while longer about random things before Spence said that he had to go.

"Fine." I said, smiling softly. "But be careful. And keep your phone on - maybe we'll get lucky and the baby will come early."

"I will." he promised. He was about to hang up when I called out again.

"And Spencer?"

"Yes?"

"Invite Agent Rossi to the party." I told him. "It'll be a nice way to welcome him to the family."

8888

 _Rossi's P.O.V._

We were back in Quantico, and I watched the rest of the team for a moment before following Hotch back up to his office.

"You said out there," I began slowly. "The team shares everything." Hotch turned around to look at me, getting up from behind his desk at the same time.

"That's right." he replied.

"There is no… 'I'?" I asked, and he nodded, looking confused. He was most likely wondering where I was going with my questions. I walked a bit further into his office before I said anything else. "Seems a big thing to withhold… separating from your wife, your child."

"What are you talking about?" he asked me, but the expression on his face said that he already knew.

"You used to call Haley ten times a day. We've been together forty-eight hours, I haven't seen you call her once. Haven't heard you mention her."

"What's your point?" he asked, but I continued with what I was saying, pulling out another piece of information that I had noticed during the short case.

"Hell, I've seen Dr. Reid on the phone at least three times a day, and I could hear him talking through the night through the wall of my hotel room." I told Aaron, who smiled slightly. "Maybe he's got secrets of his own."

Just then, the kid himself came bursting through the door to Hotch's office, looking like someone had just dumped an entire bowl full of candy in his hands.

"Hotch, the Halloween party's canceled." he said quickly, giving us both an awkward smile. "But we're meeting up at the hospital instead, okay?" he asked, and then nodded as if we had answered him before running out again, yelling to Morgan as he raced down the stairs, "Have you seen my jacket?"

Hotch got up quickly and ran over to the door. "Reid!" he called out, getting the young genius to stop for a minute. "Why are we meeting at the hospital?"

The question seemed to get him to stop and breathe for a second, although it could have had something to do with the calming effect that Hotch had on people in general. Whichever it was, it was enough to get the kid to slow down.

"It's time." he said as he grinned like a loon, pausing by the doors long enough to talk to us. "Kat just called - called me from the hospital. The baby's coming, Hotch." Then he started to freak out again. "Oh my god, the baby's coming!"

Hotch smiled at that, while I was dumbstruck. He said something else before coming back into his office, while Reid went flying out of the bullpen with Morgan hot on his heels. Garcia, JJ, and Prentiss weren't far behind.

Hotch was grinning when he turned around. "Dave, are you coming?" he asked me.

"Hold on just a second." I said, and he froze, his stern mask settling back into place.

"What is it?"

"Baby? What baby?" I asked, and he visibly relaxed, smiling slightly.

"I forgot that you've literally just joined the team." he said. "Ariel, Reid's wife, apparently just went into labour. They've both been freaking out about being parents for the longest time now." he started to head out the door then. "Come on, it'll be a great chance for you to meet her - you'll get a kick out of her, trust me."

I was still in shock, but followed Hotch anyway. "Why?" I asked, confused, although he didn't answer. I was still having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Dr. Reid was married - although I had noticed the ring on his finger, it just hadn't connected in my mind. But now, I was picturing Reid's wife as a - pregnant - tiny, demure woman who was very similar to him.

Needless to say, I was surprised by how wrong I was.

8888

 _Five minutes earlier…_

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I just put down my messenger bag when I saw the message light on the phone on my desk blinking red, but just before I could start to listen to them, the phone rang again.

"Someone's popular." Morgan joked. I just rolled my eyes and picked up the phone.

"This is Dr. Reid." I said, and then had to hold the phone away from my ear due to the unearthly screech that came from it.

" _WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?"_ Kat screamed.

I stared at the receiver for a moment before putting it back to my ear. "I've been on a case." I said. "Why, what's happened? Is Ariel alright?" At that point both Morgan and Prentiss were looking at me, their curiosity clearly written on their faces.

"Oh, nothing much." Kat replied, sounding a lot calmer. "She's fine, just in labor."

"Okay, so why are you calling me in a screaming panic?" I asked her, irritated. She didn't answer. It only took a few seconds for me to realize what she said, and when I did, I dropped the phone. Morgan started laughing, but I didn't care. I scrambled to pick it back up, practically shouting,

"She's what?"

"She's in labor, g-man." she said, still sounding irritated. "Has been for the past few hours. I've been calling you the whole damn time, both your cell and your work!"

I was scrambling at that point, trying to grab all of my stuff while staying on the phone. "I'm sorry, so sorry, my cell phone died and we just got back, I'll be there as soon as I can!" Then I just threw the phone down, grabbing my bag.

"Kid, calm down." Morgan said, grabbing my shoulder. "What's going on?"

"I can't calm down Morgan!" I cried out, still panicking. "My wife is in labor, and I'm missing it!"

8888

 _Rossi's P.O.V._

Hotch and I got stuck in traffic, so we got to the hospital about half an hour after the rest of the team did. The whole team was there, along with four other people that I didn't recognize. The guys - Morgan and the three men that I didn't recognize - were all laughing, and the ladies looked like they were trying their hardest to keep from joining in. Except for the one with the crazy hair, who was laughing so hard that there were tears streaming down her face.

"Is the baby here yet?" Hotch asked as soon as we were close enough. The new woman shook her head, while giving me a Look at the same time.

"No, she's been in labor for about ten hours now." she said. "I kept calling Spencer, but it kept going straight to voicemail - apparently his phone died on him and the genius didn't think to charge it." then she turned to look at me. "Who're you?"

For a moment, I was actually a little afraid of the petite woman in front of me. She definitely looked strange with her pale blue hair and tattooed body - especially with the get-up she had on. She was wearing a tight black outfit, with furry cat ears and a tail, and I was about to ask about that before I remembered that Dr. Reid had said something about a Halloween party when he came running into Hotch's office. I was wondering how on earth she knew Dr. Reid - I assumed that that was why she was here, along with the other men, because they were either family or friends of the family. But she didn't appear to be the type that Dr. Reid would associate with.

However, I reminded myself as Technical Analyst Penelope Garcia came into view, I realized that not everyone was what they appeared to be.

"I'm David." I said, holding out a hand to her. "David Rossi. I just joined the team." I explained as we shook hands.

"Rejoined." Hotch corrected, and the woman looked at him in surprise. "Dave was one of the founding members of the BAU."

She finally smiled at me then, and she looked a lot less intimidating. "I'm Katerina." she introduced. "You're the book-writer guy, aren't you?" she asked, and I laughed at that.

"I don't think anyone else has put it like that before, but yes I am." I said.

She smirked. "I bet Spencer was thrilled - did he start babbling?" she asked.

I nodded, and then looked around. "Speaking of Dr. Reid, where is he? I thought he would've been out here with us."

One of the men laughed. He was tall, with dark shaggy hair and an easygoing disposition. "Nah, man." he said. "He's in there with Ariel getting his ass handed to him."

Hotch started to laugh - to actually _laugh_ \- at that, but I was confused. "I don't understand…"

"Just wait a minute or two, Rossi." Agent Morgan said, and while he had obviously been laughing only minutes earlier, I could see the obvious worry in his face, which made sense. From what I had seen just during the last case, it was obvious that Morgan and Reid were very close.

"Why?" I asked. None of them even got a chance to answer my question, though.

It was muffled slightly by the doors, but I could make out the pained screams of a woman, followed by a voice screaming, "I SWEAR TO EVERY GOD AND GODDESS OUT THERE, SPENCER I AM GOING TO KILL YOU AND YOUR STUPID FACE!" She continued on like that, but I couldn't hear her over the laughter that was coming from the guys.

I must've looked as concerned as I felt, because JJ came over to me. "Don't worry, Rossi." she said, although she was trying to hide a smirk as well. "She probably won't carry through with her threats. Probably."

Even Hotch was laughing at that point. "I remember how awful Haley was when she was in labor with Jack. She kept threatening to do horrible things to me."

There was another round of screamed threats, and this time the other girls started to laugh as well - although their laughter had less to do with what was being screamed and more to do with the guys, who had all gone pale as they heard the threats.

"It's gonna be a long night." one of the men - I think he was introduced as Gabe - said, settling down into a chair.

8888

 _No One's P.O.V._

It was about four in the morning when Spencer came out of the delivery room. He was still wearing scrubs and looked exhausted, but had the biggest smile possible plastered on his face.

The rest of their family was sitting in the waiting room, almost asleep. Kat was the first one out of her chair, and Gabe fell over as his pillow - also known as Kat's shoulder - moved out from under him.

"Is she okay?" Kat asked eagerly, looking like she was about to bust down the doors of the delivery room to see her niece or nephew.

Spencer was smiling so widely that it looked like his face was going to crack into two. "She's fine… she's absolutely perfect. So is the baby… of course the baby's perfect, I mean…" he was rambling at that point.

"Calm down, Spence." JJ said, trying to get the new father to take a deep breath.

"Boy or girl?" Garcia asked, having finally woken up from where she had fallen asleep against Morgan.

Spencer smiled at them, his eyes twinkling. "Come and see." he offered, leading us through the hallways until he opened up a door that led to his wife and newborn child.

 **A/N~ Mwahaha… bit of a cliffhanger there :P**

 **WE MADE IT! Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck with me for this long - you have no idea just how much I appreciate every one of you.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, ripon, gossamermouse101, tannerose5, Momochan77, and tlcroft for their reviews!**


	27. Then comes marriage

**A/N~ I'm not going to lie, the next few chapters may be some of the hardest that I've ever written.**

" _Boy or girl?" Garcia asked, having finally woken up from where she had fallen asleep against Morgan._

 _Spencer smiled at them, his eyes twinkling. "Come and see." he offered, leading us through the hallways until he opened up a door that presumably led to his wife and newborn child._

8888

 _Rossi's P.O.V._

Katerina was the first one through, and we all followed the blue-haired woman through the door. I found myself anxiously waiting to get my first glimpse of Mrs. Reid. Even though what I had heard and seen so far had been far off from what I had expected - like Katerina, or the curses and threats that had come from the delivery room - I still expected Dr. Reid's wife to almost be a female version of the man himself.

The woman laying in the hospital bed was almost as far from what I had pictured as possible.

She looked exhausted and pale, but practically glowed with happiness - something that I expected, considering that she had just given birth. However, the dark makeup around her eyes that had been smudged by both sweat and tears was something that I didn't expect, and neither were the tattoos that covered her arms. Her hair was dark, almost black, and wavy. All in all, she was beautiful, and if I had been about ten years younger - and she wasn't married - I would've been putting on the old Italian charm.

"Hey guys." she said, smiling at everyone. Her eyes skimmed over the crowd that had gathered around her hospital bed, before landing on me where I stood over by the door, and her smile faded.

"You must be Agent Rossi." she said. "I'm Ariel, Spencer's wife. But why are you all the way over there?" she smirked then, and even with how exhausted she looked I could still see traces of her usual humor in her expression. "I won't bite you… that's saved for my husband."

I must've looked as shocked as I felt, because she started laughing even as said husband blushed. "Ariel!" he admonished.

"Oh please, killer." she said, shifting the baby in her arms as she attempted to get more comfortable. "The man's been married three times. I'm going to assume that he knows what married people do."

"Enough, you two." Katerina said. "I've been dying to know for the past ten months what the baby is, and so help me you'd better tell me now." she was glaring down at the other woman by the time she finished, and I would've thought it strange and more than a little rude if not for nearly everyone else in the room rolling their eyes at her antics.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

"Everyone, I'd like to introduce to you the newest member of our family." I announced proudly, as my wife handed our baby over to Kat. "Michael Gideon Reid."

There was plenty of gasping and cooing from the women, and some from the men as well as they all stared at the baby. There was a few minutes of pure happiness, before it was destroyed.

The door of the hospital room was pulled open, and a doctor stuck his head in. He was an older man with a head of graying hair and thick glasses on his face. "I'm looking for a…" he checked the clipboard that he was carrying before looking up again. "Mr. Reid?"

Ariel was the first one to answer. "No, but there is a _Doctor_ Reid." she said snidely, and there was barely muffled laughter from one of the guys in the room. I had a feeling that it was Lee.

"It's alright, Ari-bear." I reassured her, kissing her forehead gently before getting up from where I had been sitting next to her.

Of course, though, things only went downhill from there, and quickly. "You're a doctor?" the man asked me incredulously. "How old are you?"

"I'm, um… twenty six." I said awkwardly, before trying to return to the original topic. That was harder than it should have been because of the medical doctor who kept staring at me in disbelief. "What was it you wanted to talk about?"

He paused to try and collect himself - or to get over the apparent shock - for a moment before speaking. "Why don't we talk outside?"

8888

I followed the doctor out the door, already nervous about what he was going to say. His body language read as being tense, but I had no idea what it was that could possibly be making him like that.

"What is it?" I asked him as soon as the door had shut behind me.

"There's something that you should know, about your son…" he began, and my heart started going overtime.

"What's happened? Is he okay?" I asked, just hoping that the man would hurry up and tell me what was wrong.

"Before I tell you, I have to ask… were there any _complications_ in your wife's pregnancy?" he asked.

I didn't even have to think about it. "Yeah, there was, ah, there was a car accident that she was involved in… the doctors, they, um, they put her in a coma for about a month." I answered quickly. "Why?" I felt like I was about to pass out, I was so scared about what might be wrong with our baby.

"That explains it." he mused, flipping through the charts that were on his clipboard.

I was about ready to start shouting at the man if he didn't give me some answers. "Explains what?"

"Your son was born with deafness in both ears." the doctor said quietly. "Almost completely deaf in the left ear, and only partially deaf in the right. Meaning -"

"He might never be able to hear anything." I murmured, cutting him off. "How…?"

"It could be anything, from a genetic cause to something that happened in the accident." the man replied, not sounding all that interested in what he had just told me. For a doctor, his bedside manner was one of the worst that I had had the misfortune of seeing so far.

"Is there anything that can be done?" I asked. I wanted to make sure that I had every last scrap of information possible before I went in and…

My heart dropped into my stomach when I realized what was about to happen. I was going to have to go in there and let my wife and our entire family know that our son… our son was deaf.

"It's possible that he may be able to be fitted for hearing aids at some point in his life." the doctor said slowly. "But that's a pretty big _maybe_."

But at that point, I didn't care how desperate the odds were. There was a chance that we could help our son to deal with his disability, and that was all that I really needed to know that things were going to be okay in the end.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

Everyone was taking turns to hold Michael after Spencer left. There were hugs and congratulations all around, and I made Hotch promise to bring Haley and Jack by at some point to meet the baby. I knew that no one else on the team knew about their separation, and I also knew that he preferred to keep it that way.

There were a few quiet moments where the ladies were all cooing over how tiny he was, when I decided to take the chance to talk with Agent Rossi. So I waved him over to the bed.

"Shouldn't you be resting?" he asked, once he was close enough. I just shrugged off his concerns.

"I'm sure I'll have time later." I told him. "Right now, I want to get to know the newest member of the team a little better." I motioned to the large group of people that filled the room. "How are you taking all this, anyway?"

Rossi looked confused. "All of what?"

"Well, it's kind of obvious that you're a loner at this point, Rossi. How many marriages have you had now - five?"

"Three, actually." he corrected me.

"But no family." I added, then caught the look on his face. "I'm not saying that to be rude or anything, I'm just stating the truth. It can be hard to go from being a loner to being part of a family. Because whether you've realized it or not, that's exactly what happened when you joined the team, Agent Rossi. You joined a family." He was still looking at me oddly.

"You seem to be oddly accepting of my presence in your family." he commented.

I just shrugged. "When you're married to a skinny little thing - and I call him that with as much love as I possibly can - who has an IQ of 187, and instead of doing the safe thing and taking a job teaching somewhere…" I stopped my rant then, blushing slightly when I saw the amused look on his face. "I love my husband, Agent Rossi. But let's just say that he and I don't always see eye-to-eye on everything."

He nodded, and that was when I remembered exactly why I had wanted to talk to him in the first place - there had been a reason other than just introducing myself. I blamed the epidural and the other pain meds that the doctors had given me for not remembering sooner. "I do have t warn you though… you've got big shoes to fill, Agent Rossi. Spencer already looks up to you. Please don't do anything to hurt him… because you seem like a decent person, and I'd hate to be mad at you."

He looked like he thought I was joking for a second, before he realized that I wasn't. It looked like he was about to say something, but then the door opened, and Spencer came back in.

I looked over to my husband, but my smile faded when I saw the look of pain on his face.

"Spencer?" I asked, getting everyone else's attention. "What's the matter?"

 **A/N~ Not the best place to cut it off, I know. Sorry about that… not really. I figured that having one of them find out was enough heartbreak for this chapter. Please don't kill me.**

 **I'm slightly surprised at how many people wanted a girl, though. Sorry, not this time!**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, ripon, TwilightNewMoonEclipseMidnight, vampire and inuyasha lover 13, gossamermouse101, tannerose5, tlcroft, Momochan77, Matthew, and Guest for their reviews!**


	28. Then comes the baby in a baby carriage

**A/N~ Just so you all know, Michael Gideon Reid was born on November 2, 2007. Also just so you know, this chapter wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this long, but the muses took me to places that I didn't expect.**

 _I looked over to my husband, but my smile faded when I saw the look of pain on his face._

" _Spencer?" I asked, getting everyone else's attention. "What's the matter?"_

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

He didn't answer at first. "Sweetheart? What is it?"

That was when he looked at me, and I nearly flinched. The look in his eyes was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was tortured, but resigned - like he knew something terrible was about to happen but had no idea how to stop it.

"Can… can you guys give us a few minutes, please?" he asked everyone quietly. "Just, just, ah… go down to the cafeteria and get yourselves some coffee or something." There was a moment or two when everyone just stared at him, but surprisingly, Agent Rossi was the first one to say anything.

"Sure thing, kid." he said, moving towards the door. "Just give us a call when you're ready." The rest of our family started to follow him out of the room before Spencer spoke again.

"Actually… Morgan, Kat, uh, would you, um… stay?" Spencer asked, and my nerves started to ease a bit. If that was all that he wanted to talk about, then things were fine.

They both nodded, and Kat came and sat down on the edge of the bed, handing Michael back to me as she did.

Once the door shut, they turned to look at my husband.

"What's up, pretty boy?" Morgan asked, and I giggled for a second. No matter how serious the situation was, that nickname would always make me laugh.

"We have something we want to ask you…" I began, but Spence cut me off.

"Ariel… there's something you should know first." he said softly. "It's about what the doctor told me."

"Fine, but can we please tell them first? I've been dying to ask for so long now." I asked, carefully shifting Michael around so that he was laying down with his head on my chest.

Spencer paused for a second, then gave a soft smile. "Alright." he finally agreed.

"Yay!" I said, before remembering that there was a baby sleeping on top of me. Surprisingly, Michael hadn't moved an inch - he didn't even appear to have been bothered by it.

"We wanted to ask you guys," I began, trying to be quieter this time, "if you wanted to be Michael's godparents."

They looked shocked, and I was starting to wonder if it was a good idea to ask them when they didn't say anything for a few minutes. "Umm, guys?" I said, trying to regain their attention. "Anything to say? Anything at all?"

"Wow." Morgan was the first one to say anything. "I'm just… wow. Yeah, kid, I'm… I'm honored."

Kat, of course, managed to put it in a less succinct manner. "Of course, _chica._ I'd like to see anyone try and get at this kid."

That earned her a strange look from Morgan, but I couldn't help but feel my heart melt a bit when she said that. Kat knew me better than just about anyone - she might have been the one person who knew me even better than Spencer did, and that was saying something. She knew everything that had ever happened to me, and she also knew just how crazy life could be when we were on the road.

"Now then, what was it you wanted to tell us?" I said, turning back to my husband. He looked nervous, which surprised me more than anything. He hadn't been nervous around me since the night that he had asked me to marry him.

"It's about Michael." he said, and the tone of his voice made my heart drop.

"What about him?" I asked. At this point in time it was taking all of my willpower to keep from losing it completely. That - and the fact that I was still hopped up on painkillers and had a baby sleeping on top of me - were the only things that actually kept me in the hospital bed. "Spencer Reid, you're not making things any better by being cryptic, so just spit it out."

"He's deaf." he said quickly, and in that moment I knew what it meant to have the earth ripped out from under you. It was like I was falling, with no idea of when I might land - I only knew that it would be bad when I did land. Almost like skydiving without a parachute.

"What?" I asked, horrified. "Are you sure?" If the situation hadn't been so mind-numbing, I knew for a fact that Spencer would have responded to a question like that with sarcasm. Luckily, he didn't - I didn't think I would have been able to make it through the conversation without breaking down if he had.

"The doctor was positive. There's a chance that he might be able to use hearing aids when he gets older, but we won't know for sure until he's at least six months." he explained sadly, moving to come and sit next to me on the hospital bed. "He's deaf, sweetheart." he finished, pulling me close so that my head rested on his chest.

Suddenly I thought of something. "This is all my fault." I said, making Morgan and Kat look at me in surprise. I had honestly forgotten that they were even there - they must've been trying to give us a bit of privacy, which was much appreciated.

"What're you talking about?" Morgan asked, looking at me in disbelief.

"The car accident." I said softly, trying to hold back my tears. "If it wasn't for that damn accident, none of this would be happening.

"Hey." Morgan said, moving up so that he was sitting on my other side. "None of this is your fault, sweetheart. If anything, it's the driver's fault. Remember that sonuvabitch?"

I nodded, trying to see his face through the haze of tears. "And we're gonna get him, alright?" he said. "I don't care how long it takes, we're gonna get this guy."

I laid my head back against my husband's shoulder as I gave Morgan a watery smile. "Thanks, Derek." I said.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Penelope peered around the corner, saying "Knock-knock. Anybody home?"

Spencer smiled at her. "Yeah." he said softly. "Come on in, Garcia." he pressed a kiss to my temple before moving to stand up. "Hey, uh Morgan? Would you and the guys mind helping me out with something?" he asked, sounding anxious.

8888

 _Rossi's P.O.V._

Dr. Reid met us outside of his wife's hospital room, looking more worried than I had ever seen him. Morgan slipped out after him, and it was only after JJ and Prentiss went inside that he said anything.

"I need your help." he said quickly.

Morgan nodded, seeming to already be on the same page as the younger man. "Hotch, we gotta get that bastard in jail." he said, and Dr. Reid turned to look at him in confusion.

"What? No, that's not the issue right now. Well, that is the issue, just not the most pressing one at the moment."

Morgan looked at him like he had lost his mind - which, as far as I knew, he had. "Are you nuts, kid?" he protested. "Your girl -"

"Is fine for now." Reid said, cutting his friend off. I had learned a lot about those two in the two days that I had known them so far. One of the first things that I had learned was that they were best friends, practically brothers. They watched out for each other in every sense of the phrase, and now was no exception. "There are three mama bears in there, and only one of them is my wife - I think they're covered."

Morgan couldn't help but smirk at that.

"So what's up, G-man?" one of Ariel's friends - I think his name was Finn - asked softly. I assumed that the guys were all Ariel's friends, although I had already been wrong about things today.

"There is nothing set up at home for Michael yet." he admitted. "We thought we had at least another few weeks to get ready, and with how crazy things have been lately…"

"No worries, my man." another one of Ariel's friends spoke up. He was on the shorter side, and was obviously of Asian descent. "We'll take care of it."

"Thanks, Lee." Reid said gratefully, tossing him his keys. "Come on." he started to go towards the elevator, but Finn stopped him. "Hold up, Spencer. Stay here with the mermaid and the little one."

Gabe smiled. "Yeah, we've got this under control." he said, reassuring him. The doctor - and I still didn't know what he was a doctor of - looked unconvinced.

"Are you sure?" he asked, and this time it was Hotch who stepped up.

"Go and be with your wife, Reid." he instructed. "I'll make sure that they don't destroy anything." That was apparently the right thing to say, because the younger agent seemed to loosen up and relax a bit.

"You know the place, help yourself to any food in the fridge." he said, rattling off instructions. "There's baby-proofing stuff on the kitchen counter, and all of the furniture and things are in the baby's room - it's right across from our bedroom. Guys -" he pointed to the three men that I didn't know "you know where it is."

Morgan clapped Reid on the shoulder, cutting off any more words. "Relax, pretty boy." Anything you need us to bring for you?"

He thought about it for a second, then nodded. "Yeah, can you grab the, um, there's a bag in Ariel's closet of her stuff, and could you grab some clothes for Michael too? I don't think Ariel's going to want him to leave her in whatever pastel stuff they have him in now."

Gabe snorted. "You got that right."

"We'll be back soon." Hotch promised, before leading us out to the SUV. The three other men climbed into their cars - Finn and Lee got into a gorgeous black car, while Gabe climbed into a little blue convertible.

As soon as we started driving, I started asking questions, "What exactly is Doctor Reid a doctor of?" was the first one.

Hotch smirked, while Morgan chuckled. "The better question is what isn't he a doctor of." Hotch answered. "You know that each person on the team is an expert in something… Reid is our expert in pretty much everything. He has PhDs in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering, and BAs in Psychology, Sociology, and Philosophy."

I whistled. "You weren't kidding when you said he was your resident genius."

"How long have Dr. Reid and his wife been married?" was my next question.

"A little over six years now." Morgan said, smiling.

"And to think, he still comes off as being the baby of our rag-tag family…" Hotch added.

Morgan finished off what we all thinking. "Now the kid's got a kid of his own." We were following the other cars through D.C., and it seemed like I wasn't the only one who didn't know where we were going.

"How are you handling all this, Dave?" Hotch asked me, and I looked at him in confusion, so he quickly elaborated. "You worked alone for so many years, to come back and be on a team is hard enough. But then to find out that we're more of a family…" he trailed off.

"I'm not going to lie," I said slowly. "It's a lot to take in." but then I smiled. "But I think I can handle it."

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

"Oh, look at him." JJ cooed, running the tip of her finger over his cheek. "He's so cute."

"Wait until you see this." I said, smirking as I pulled the little pastel hat that the nurses had put on him off.

The girls all gasped in surprise as I revealed the little red mohawk that Michael had been born with.

Emily laughed. "Uh oh, here comes trouble!"

"He needs a little leather jacket to go with that hair." Penelope added.

"You've got that right." JJ said. "How's Spence doing?"

I laughed, even though I was terrified. The truth was, I didn't really know how he was doing. He had barely told me that our son was deaf before disappearing from the room. "Surprisingly well. He's still terrified to hold Michael, though - he's afraid that he'll drop him." The whole thing was ridiculous, and I kept telling him that, but he refused to believe me.

The knowledge that my baby boy was deaf had settled in my stomach in tight knots, and I knew that if I thought about it for longer than a few seconds, I would burst into tears again.

That was when Spencer walked into the room again. He came right over to the bed, and his smile only grew when he saw the little red mohawk. His long slender fingers caressed his little head as he pressed a kiss to my temple.

"I sent the guys back to the house." he said quietly, settling himself down next to me on the bed. "They're going to grab some clothes for you and hopefully some less pastel ones for Michael."

I smiled up at him. "Oh thank god." I sighed, leaning my head back against the stack of pillows.

JJ looked confused. "What's wrong with what he's wearing?" she asked, and Kat smirked.

"Ariel hates pastels." she told the others. "I have no idea why, but she always has."

"I don't know why, okay?" I said - this was a conversation that Kat and I had had a surprising number of times before. "I just don't like them."

"He's so quiet." Penelope said, sounding surprised, and Spencer and I shared a look. "I would've thought that we would have woken him up by now."

"There's a reason for that." I said softly, before turning to look back at my husband. "Do you want to tell them or should I?" I asked him softly.

"I'll tell them." he said after a moment's hesitation. "He's so quiet because he's deaf." he said, and there was utter silence from the ladies of the BAU.

Their silence seemed to be affecting Spencer as much as it was affecting me, because he started rambling. "0.003% of children born in the United States have some form of detectable hearing loss. Actually, it doesn't appear to be genetic, as 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents. Also…" I clapped a hand over his mouth to get him to stop rambling.

"So that's how you get him to stop." Emily noted, but she still seemed like she was having trouble processing what he had said.

8888

 _Rossi's P.O.V._

We pulled up outside of a beautiful house in a little neighborhood. I was surprised, to say the least. I didn't know what Mrs. Reid - Ariel, I reminded myself - did for a living, but it must have been something good to be able to afford this house. It was a large house with a wood paneled and stone exterior, and large, curved-topped windows. The front door was set into the house a bit, and dark-stained.

Morgan whistled. "Damn. This place is fine." he said, and I couldn't help but agree with him.

Gabe looked over at the other man. "You haven't been here yet?" he asked, and Morgan shook his head.

"The team's been so busy lately, I barely even remember what my place looks like." he explained as Finn unlocked the front door and let them all inside.

"Help yourself to anything in the fridge, guys." Finn said as he headed up the stairs. "I'm gonna throw together Ariel's stuff."

I thought that was a bit odd, but didn't say anything about it. I decided to skip the kitchen for now, and take a tour of the rest of the house. The living room was about what I had expected - photos were hung up on one wall, almost covering it entirely. One of the other walls had a large television on it, with several different video game systems set up underneath it. Framed concert posters surrounded it, and the third and fourth walls were covered in CD cases and more framed posters and t-shirts.

The next room I saw looked to be a library, which I had expected. What I hadn't expected was to see Chaucer side-by-side with Patterson, or Shakespeare's complete works next to Cornelia Funke.

I was about to go and snoop around some more when Hotch stuck his head in the room. "Dave, are you ready to go? We've got everything that we need, and Morgan, Finn, and Gabe are going to stay here and put together the nursery."

I nodded, determined to get to the bottom of things some other time. But there was something about the young doctor and his wife that just didn't seem right...

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I nearly sighed in relief when the Hotch, Lee, and Rossi came back, carrying two bags with them. "Who picked out clothes for Michael?" I asked immediately, and Lee raised his hand, smirking.

"I did." he said.

"Thank goodness." I said, and Spencer pouted.

"What happened to the clothes that I picked out?" he asked.

"They did not come with us." Lee replied firmly, and I couldn't help but snort out a laugh.

Spence gave me another injured look, and I sighed. "Sweetheart, I love you like no other, but your fashion sense is terrible." Then I grabbed ahold of his tie and used it to pull him down for a kiss. "Although it can be terribly useful at times." I said, opening my eyes as I finally released my hold on him.

"Eww, guys!" Emily teased us. "There are little children present, you two."

I sent her a mock glare as I went to pick Michael up. "Ariel, what are you doing?" my husband asked in alarm as I moved to climb out of the bed.

"I'm changing his clothes, killer." I told him, rolling my eyes.

"No, you're not - you can't." Spencer said quickly, hovering slightly. "You aren't technically supposed to even have visitors yet, but you managed to convince the doctors to let everyone in, and I really don't want to know how you managed that. So you are not getting out of that bed."

"Try and stop me." I replied, and he practically spat out his next words.

"If you don't get back in that bed right now, Ariel, I'll ask the doctor to sedate you."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. But I wasn't going to back down. I knew that a fight was coming on, and decided to try and get everyone out of the room as soon as I could.

"If you guys wouldn't mind, we need to be alone for a bit." I told our family. They all looked more than a bit shocked, probably due to what I had just said. In all honesty, I was more than a little shocked by what I had said. But at the moment, I didn't care.

Ariel waited until Hotch closed the door behind him before saying anything. "What the hell was that, Spencer?" she snapped.

"Ariel, you need to be resting!" I said frantically. "I get that you want to put on your brave face, but you can't right now. Your body needs you to rest. Michael needs you to rest." Up until that point, I didn't really know what I was saying. Words were pouring out of my mouth with no real rhyme or reason, and I just prayed that somehow it would make her see sense. "Please." I finished, and there were a few seconds of silence before she said anything.

When she did, she flopped back down onto the bed with a pout, momentarily forgetting that Michael was laying there. I scooped him up quickly, cradling the blanket-wrapped bundle close to my chest.

Ariel looked at me in fright. "Okay, you were right." she said quickly. "I need some sleep."

I nearly sighed in relief, but avoided it in favor of putting Michael back in the plastic bassinet that he was supposed to be sleeping in.

I had no idea how I would get Ariel to actually learn to take care of herself, but I was going to have to make sure that she did. Otherwise it could spell disaster for her… and for Michael.

 **If you want to see what the house looks like, copy and paste this into Google:**

 **.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5, gossamermouse101, tlcroft, Momochan77, curlystruggle for their reviews.**

 **Hopefully I'll get the next chapter done in time for Christmas!**


	29. Merry Christmas

**A/N~ I recently realized that Spencer is pretty OOC in this fic, at least I think he is. Let me know if you think differently, please - it would be a huge confidence booster! Anyways, I'm hoping that this chapter will help explain why he might be OOC.**

 **Parts of this chapter were also in response to an argument my friend and I had about Spencer Reid and his reactions to flirting… so interpret that as you wish, I know that I did.**

 **As I'm finishing writing this, the rest of my family is watching Trolls… it's quite terrifying.**

 **Here's a Christmas special for you all! But of course, since this is Ariel and Spencer, Christmas isn't going to be the normal kind…**

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

"You remind me of the babe." I sang along with David Bowie as Spencer and I decorated the tree. Michael was lying on a blanket in the middle of the living room, wiggling his little arms and legs in the air. He was wearing a little green onesie with a large red skull and crossbones in the middle of it, with matching socks and an elf hat.

"What babe?" Spencer fired back, singing along with the goblins. He was wearing another pair of mismatched Christmas socks - one was blue with white and gold snowflakes, and the other was green with little red reindeer all over it. He wore a hideous sweater, and had tried his best to get me to wear one too, but I refused. Instead, I had put on my elf dress. It was a little green number with a pleated skirt, black belt with a big golden buckle, and a white peter pan collar.

"The babe with the power." I answered, copying the movements of the Goblin King to make my husband laugh. He did, and grabbed ahold of my waist at the same time, spinning me around so that we were face-to-face.

"What power?" he whispered, but I was done playing by then and pulled him in for a kiss. This was the side of my husband that not many people saw - the fun, playful side. The part of him that could reduce me into a blushing schoolgirl with one well-timed kiss. Most people only saw the version of him that he meant for them to see - that of the socially awkward, stuttering genius. And while it was always entertaining to see people react to that side of him, I really didn't like it as much. Because when people only knew that side of him, they tended to see him as a walking, talking computer that didn't have any emotions or feelings. And that wasn't who he was - he was so much more. But our family knew the truth about him, and that was what counted.

The real Spencer Reid - _my_ Spencer Reid - was shy around those who didn't know him, with a hidden sense of humor and a heart of gold. He hid behind his statistics and facts, but when it came down to it he was always there for any of his family.

I cut off my own train of thought when Spence started to pull his lips away from mine, and I nearly whimpered.

"What about Michael?" he asked, and I pulled away for a second.

"He's not paying attention." I said, and pulled him closer. He didn't have a counter-argument, so I continued moving my lips down along his jawline, and then followed the muscles in his neck down to the hollow of his collarbone where he was especially sensitive. I couldn't help but smirk when I saw him bite his lip, and his muffled curses nearly made me laugh out loud. That was one of the few ways that I knew that could get my sweet genius to lose his cool and collected mask.

I was about to suggest that we put Michael down for a nap and continue in our bedroom, but then Spencer's phone started to ring.

I sighed as he pulled away and flipped the phone open. "Dr. Reid." he said, and I could just barely hear Morgan on the other end.

"You better have a good reason for interrupting, Derek." I called out, and I could hear him laughing on the other end.

"Actually, I was about to say the same thing, Morgan." Spencer said, and there was a stunned sort of silence on the other end that had both of us laughing. "What is it?" Spence finally asked.

"We've got a case." Morgan said, sounding disappointed.

I was surprised, and by the look on Spence's face I could tell that he was, too. "But it's only four days until Christmas!" he said, and Morgan sighed.

"Tell that to the UnSubs, kid." was his reply.

Spencer shot me an apologetic look even as he answered, "Alright, I'll be there in half an hour." he hung up the phone then, and turned to look at me. "I'm sorry." he said, but I just leaned up and kissed his cheek.

"Come on, let's get you packed up and ready to go." I said, turning and picking up Michael before heading upstairs to our bedroom.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

I walked into the conference room a little over half an hour later after storing my go-bag under my desk. Needless to say, I was irritated. This was our first Christmas as a family, and there was a chance that I was going to miss it because of this case.

Everyone else was already sitting down, except for JJ, who was standing in front of the monitor.

"Sorry I'm late." I apologized. "It's still hard to leave Michael every time…"

"Just try not to let it happen again." Hotch warned, and I nodded as I took my seat.

JJ began the briefing then. "Garner, North Carolina needs our help. They've had two missing children cases in the past six days. Evan Kinch, and Robert Leone, both in seventh grade at the local middle school."

"Two?" Morgan asked, surprised. "Why weren't we called in for the first one?"

"No one was left to report them missing." JJ said gravely, pulling crime scene photos up on the screen for us to look at. The scenes were even more terrible than usual - blood everywhere, with the parents chained to their beds, their skin torn to shreds. Cases like these always left me hating my eidetic memory, because these were the kinds of things that I would never forget.

"Coroner's reports have confirmed when their parents were killed." I noted as I flipped through the file.

"Three days apart." Rossi noted. "How did they die?" he asked.

"Exsanguination." I replied, finding it in the coroner's report. "They bled out."

"Wheels up in thirty." Hotch said, closing his file and standing up. The rest of us followed him out of the conference room, going down to the bullpen to grab our bags and anything else we might need for the trip.

"How's Ariel?" Prentiss asked, coming over and picking the only photo I had on my desk. It was of my wife and son a few days after Michael was born. In it, Ariel was holding Michael in our bed, right after she had woken up in the morning.

"She's pretty upset, actually." I admitted as I pulled the picture out of her hands and put it into my go-bag. "It's our first Christmas as a family, you know? And I might miss it."

"Hey, pretty boy." Morgan said, and I turned to look at him. "We'll make sure you get home in time." he said, giving me a quick smile.

"Come on then." Rossi said, coming down from his office to join us in the bullpen. "Let's get moving."

8888

The plane ride was as tense as all of the ones involving children seemed to be. There was a brief meeting about the case where we tried to work out some of the details,but it didn't last too long before we all retreated to our separate corners.

JJ slid into the seat next to me. "What're you doing, Spence?" she asked. "Normally by now you'd be flipping through a book so fast you'd be making a breeze." she joked.

"It's a book on sign language." I told her, showing her the inside of the book. "Ariel and I are learning it so that Michael doesn't have to use hearing aids all of the time if he doesn't want to."

She smiled. "That's great, Spence! I'm guessing that this means that he can get hearing aids then?"

I nodded. "The doctor said that once he's six months old, we can get him fitted for his first pair."

"Hey kid." Morgan said, leaning over from where he sat across the aisle. "I've been meaning to ask you where I can find books on that."

"You want to learn sign language?" I asked, and he nodded.

"Of course." he answered, as if it should have been obvious. "I need to be able to talk to my godson, don't I?" I smiled at that, nodding my head.

"I guess you're right." I said, putting the book down. "Okay, so the first thing to learn is fingerspelling. Once you know that, you can basically sign anything, it just takes a little bit of time…"

8888

We made it to Garner in a little bit over two hours.

"Agent Jareau?" Someone asked as soon as we came into the sheriff's station.

"That's me." JJ said as she crossed over to the woman who had called her name. "You must be Sheriff Jenkins." JJ said, holding her hand out for the other woman to shake. Jenkins was a younger woman with short red hair and green eyes, and a petite frame.

"This is my boss, SSA Aaron Hotchner. And this is the rest of the team - SSAs David Rossi, Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, and Dr. Spencer Reid."

She turned to give us all handshakes with a polite smile on her face until she got to me. I just gave her my usual awkward wave, and a little smirk played across her face. "Nice to meet you all." she said, and something about her had both Morgan and Prentiss trying not to laugh.

"I set up a room for y'all to use, just like you instructed." she said, leading us towards the room.

"Why weren't we called in sooner?" Hotch asked the question that we were all dying to know the answer to.

The woman didn't even look back as she answered. "It's an election year, and our esteemed mayor didn't want people to think that we couldn't handle things. Y'all know how politics can be."

As soon as we got inside, I moved over to one of the tables, pulling the maps that they had provided over even as I pulled several different colored markers out of my bag. I bent over the map and started to work on the geographical profile using the information that was in the file that JJ had originally handed out. Meanwhile, the rest of the team started to work on the rest of the profile.

It took me a few minutes to realize that someone was staring at me, and it was only a few minutes later that I looked up.

Sheriff Jenkins seemed startled once she realized that I had caught her staring. "Sorry," she said, not really sounding sorry at all. "But what are you doing?"

"I'm, ah, I'm making a geographical profile." I explained.

She looked interested. "How do you do that?" she asked, moving closer - a bit too close for my sensibilities. By this point, I was starting to have an idea as to what Morgan and Prentiss had found so funny earlier - although I was still hoping that I was wrong. I moved over another foot, trying to make it look like I was trying to reach another part of the map, while in reality I was trying to get away from Sheriff Jenkins.

"What I do is, I, um, I take the information from, uh, from the files that your office sent us. Then I can, I can extrapolate that data and analyze it to, ah, to determine the most likely place that the UnSub lives in."

"Wow." she said, sounding impressed. "And you do that all on your own?"

I shrugged. "I find it relaxing, actually." I admitted. I quickly realized that that was the wrong thing to say, though, as her face practically lit up with unholy glee.

"I can think of something else that's much more relaxing." she practically purred, and the noise that came out of my mouth in response wasn't human.

"I think I need some coffee." I said quickly, looking up from what I was doing to see the rest of my team staring at me in amusement. "Anyone else?"

"Yeah, sure thing, kid." Surprisingly, Rossi was the first one to say anything. "Come on, I'll drive."

There were a few minutes of awkward silence at first. I still didn't know Rossi well enough yet to know what to talk about with him.

"So how's Michael doing?" Rossi asked, sounding almost wistful.

"He's um, he's doing really well." I told him. "He's nearly sleeping through the night at this point, which is surprising."

"And your wife?"

"Ariel?" I asked, and he shot me a look.

"Of course, who else would I be talking about?"

"She's uh, she's fine." That part wasn't exactly true. Neither one of us could remember the last time that we been together for this long without anything happening. Not that either of us minded, but Ariel was starting to get a bit antsy. Not that I blamed her. She had always been a free spirit, always wanting to be on the move. That was one of the things that I loved the most about her.

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

 _The Polar Express_ played in the background as I made dinner. I was planning on stopping by the BAU with Michael later on and seeing how Penny was doing.

Then the phone rang.

"Reid residence." I said, picking it up and resting it between my ear and shoulder.

"Hello." I smiled when I heard my husband's voice coming through the speaker. "How's everything going?"

"Everything's great!" I said happily. "How goes the case?"

"Nothing yet." Spencer informed me, and I could hear the sadness in his voice. I hated how any case affected him, but ones that involved children were always the worst. The worst part of it all was that there was nothing that I could do to make things any better.

"You'll figure it out." I said softly as I stirred the pasta sauce that I was making. "You always do."

"I guess you're right." he said softly.

"Are you going to be home in time for Christmas?" I asked, trying to get his attention off of the case for a minute. "Because I'd prefer to not miss out on Christmas morning sex."

Spencer laughed nervously, and I froze for a second. "Please tell me I'm not on speakerphone." I begged, and this time his laughter was a bit more relaxed.

"Don't worry, you're not. Rossi says hello, by the way."

"Well you'd better be home by Christmas morning, or else the only present that you'll be getting is coal." I teased him.

"Coal…" Spencer breathed out, and I was confused. I was about to ask him what he was going on about, but I didn't get a chance to. "Ariel, remind me to kiss you senseless when we get back - I think you may have just given us a break in the case."

"You're welcome?" I said hesitantly, but all that was left was the dialtone.

8888

 _Meanwhile, back at the sheriff's station…_

The team was debating aspects of the profile when Sheriff Jenkins approached them again. Hotch wouldn't have even known that she was on the way over if not for the amused looks that appeared on Prentiss and Morgan's faces.

"Maybe he's some sort of injustice collector?" Prentiss posited, flipping through the file in her hand. "He was wronged by someone in the family, and is now taking revenge?"

"No." Morgan disagreed. "This would be overkill for an injustice collector. Plus, they would just go after the person that messed with them, not their whole family." Hotch heard the sound of pages being shuffled through before anyone said anything else. "What I want to know is what this guy is doing with the kids."

"Can I help you, sheriff?" he heard Morgan ask. Hotch knew that he shouldn't be listening in, but he couldn't help himself.

"Yeah, actually. Maybe you can. I was wondering what y'all could tell me about your Dr. Reid." That surprised Hotch. He had known that the sheriff had her eye on the young genius, but had thought that the woman would have at least had enough tact to wait until after they had finished with the case… or even better, to not ask at all.

"Um, I can tell you that he's married." Prentiss said, and Hotch could feel his lips twitching up into a smile at her irritated tone.

"Is he… happy?" she asked, and at that point Hotch turned around, completely shocked. He had thought that the woman would have given up once she heard that Reid was married, but it was as if that thought didn't even occur to her.

Morgan was holding onto the tabletop so tightly that his knuckles had turned white, and it looked as though it was taking all of Prentiss's willpower to keep from saying anything.

Of course, that was when Reid and Rossi came back in, laden with festive cups from Starbucks.

"Guys, I think I figured something out!" Reid said excitedly, and Morgan could barely hide his laughter when the young genius handed off the tray of coffees to the sheriff, who looked slightly disappointed. He didn't seem to notice, though, as he was too busy grabbing a marker and writing on the board, talking as he went.

"Ariel made a joke about coal -"

"Why, pretty boy?" Morgan asked. "Have you been bad this year?" The only response that Morgan got was a faint blush that probably would have been ten times more entertaining if he had been facing us instead of the board.

"And it got me thinking about this." Reid said, ignoring the older agent to the best of his ability. He finally moved away from the board, showing off the single word that he had written:

 _Krampus._

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

We gathered all of the offices in the bullpen, ready to deliver the profile.

"This UnSub is most likely a white male in his thirties." Morgan began. "Judging by the amount of preparation and the level of organization, he works a nice, high-paying, stable job. He is also obsessed with the story of Krampus."

That was when I picked it up. "Krampus is a folk character that is one of the companions of Saint Nicholas in Austria, Bavaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Northern Italy. He is traditionally considered to be the anti-Claus, and instead of bringing presents to good children, he kidnaps the bad children and tortures them with whips and chains."

"The UnSub is twisting this myth, however." Prentiss continued. "Instead of punishing the children, he appears to be punishing the parents. This suggests someone with a deep hatred for parents, and who most likely wouldn't be one. Look for men who are single, and refuse to have anything to do with parents in general."

"We don't know what he's doing with the children." Morgan said. "But we don't think that he's hurting them - from what we know of the parents, these kids lived in abusive homes, so it may be that he sees himself as saving them somehow. So look for someone who likes to help kids, but hates dealing with other adults."

"Alright, that's everything." Hotch said.

8888

It took us another day or two before we caught a single break in the case. But once we did, it took us all of a few hours before we had the UnSub in custody. The children were only a little worse for wear, and they would be fine after a few days.

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

We were getting ready to leave, and I had called Ariel to let her know that we were heading back, but I had gotten the answering machine. I hung up the phone, disappointed.

"Is everything okay?" A voice asked, and I turned around to see Sheriff Jenkins walking towards me.

"Yeah, um, yeah." I said, looking at my phone sadly. "I just, uh, I just miss my wife, is all."

"Oh, is that all?" she said breezily. "So, I was wondering if you'd want to call me sometime."

I looked at her in confusion, then realized what she was getting at. "I have a wife, Sheriff Jenkins." I reminded her. "And a son at home, whom I love very much. So I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone."

"Oh come on, Doctor Reid." she said coyly. "Loosen up a little.

"You don't even know me." I said coldly. "And if you don't mind, I'd like to leave now."

8888

 _Hotch's P.O.V._

I was just about to start on the paperwork for the last case when Reid came into my office.

"Hey Hotch." he said, and I put down my pen.

"What can I do for you?" I asked, and he gave a little smile. It still amazed me how different Reid seemed now. Only three years ago, I had known that his wife existed, but had never met her before, and so I had never gotten a chance to see the side of Spencer Reid that I knew now. With her and Michael, he was almost a completely different man than he was at work. He was still clumsy and awkward at times, but much more sure of himself and his abilities. At work, that confidence only showed when he was spouting out statistics and facts. But now that the team knew his secret, it was like he was more willing to let us see that side of him as well - that of the confident and snarky man that he truly was. It was amazing.

"You can come and have dinner with Ariel and I." he said, and I was about to decline when he added, "Michael's been dying to see you again."

"Michael's only two months old, Reid." I reminded him, and he nodded.

"I know that." he said, "but that doesn't mean that he doesn't want to see you."

I thought about it for a moment or two before making up my mind. "Alright." I said as I stood up from behind my desk. "I'm coming."

The look that flashed across Reid's face could have only been described as pure relief. "Alright." he said quietly, then moved back to leave my office. "Let me just go and grab my bag and then we can leave."

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

It was around six on Christmas Eve when I heard the front door open. I smiled, looking at the little boy who sat at the kitchen table, decorating Christmas cookies with a single-minded determination.

"Guess who's here?" I asked him, and he smiled.

"Unca Spence?" he asked, and I nodded.

"But someone else is here too." I said, hoping that I was right. Spencer had called me when the team first got back to the Bureau, and I had told him about our visitor, suggesting that he bring someone else along with him. The only question was if he had succeeded in getting the man in question to come.

"Who is it?" the little brown-eyed boy asked, looking up at me. I picked him up from where he sat, trying not to laugh at the bits of icing and sprinkles that were stuck to his face.

"Let's go see!" I told him, and Jack Hotchner giggled excitedly, nodding his head. We crept over to the hallway, with Jack giggling the entire way.

Spencer and Aaron were standing in the hallway, and we jumped out at them. "Look who it is, Jack!" I said excitedly, and he started to try and squirm out of my grasp.

"Daddy!" he cried happily, and Hotch looked up in surprise.

"Hey, kiddo!" Hotch said happily, coming over and picking his son up from where he sat perched on my hip. "What are you doing here?"

"Haley dropped him off earlier - she had to wrap p-r-e-s-e-n-t-s." I explained quietly, and Hotch nodded in understanding.

"Gotcha." he said, and then we just stood there awkwardly for a minute. Things had been kind of awkward ever since he and Haley had split up, but nothing could really ruin Christmas. So I simply pulled my husband in for a kiss that he gladly reciprocated. We finished when I bit his lip and he pulled away, looking wounded.

I just shrugged, smirking a bit. "What can I say?" I asked. "Love bites, and so do I."

"You should write that one down." he told me, and I nodded.

"Come and see our son." I said excitedly, pulling him towards the living room where MIchael lay in his swing.

 **A/N~ This was my first time writing an original case - let me know what you all think of it!**

 **Happy Holidays to everyone out there! I love you all so much for reading, following, favouriting, reviewing, and generally enjoying this story.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, tannerose5, KirkSauber, Momochan77, tlcroft, and gossamermouse101 for their reviews!**

 **Also, I most likely won't have anything up this Tuesday. Things have been really hectic lately, so I haven't had a chance to write recently. I'll try my best, but I can make no promises.**


	30. Penelope

_She was walking up the steps to her apartment building when he spoke again._

" _Hey Garcia?" he called, and she turned back around. She was sure that she was grinning like a fool, but she didn't care. "I've been thinking about doing this all night."_

 _She didn't even have a chance to react before there was a bullet in her body._

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I was just singing Michael to sleep when Spencer came running into the nursery, as pale as a sheet.

Michael was a little over two months old now, and although it would still be a little while before we could get him fitted for hearing aids, I still sang to him every night. I barely had a chance to stop singing before Spencer spoke.

"Garcia's been shot."

I could feel the blood draining out of my face as I processed the words, and my husband ran over to take our son out of my arms in case I collapsed. But I didn't, surprisingly.

Instead, I took Michael back and started to get him dressed again. "We'll be ready in ten minutes." I told Spencer darkly.

8888

JJ was the only one that I saw in the waiting room when we arrived, and Spencer hurried over to her, with me hot on his heels. That was when Hotch came back over, his face an unreadable mask.

"She's in surgery." she told us, standing up. "There's no word."

"This is crazy." Spencer said, and I couldn't help but nod in agreement as I set Michael down in his baby carrier before unbuckling him. That thing was heavy, and holding onto it for so long was a work out. I knew that focusing on that was my way of ignoring the actual issue for the time being, but I was okay with that. I handed him over to Spence, and once he was settled, I moved past the others, towards the nurses' station.

"Does anyone know anything?" I heard Spencer ask, but that wasn't what bothered me at the moment.

Instead, I walked up to the nurses and smiled. "Hi." I said, getting the nurse's attention. "I was wondering about a patient that just came in… Penelope Garcia?"

"I'm sorry ma'am." she said immediately. "But I'm afraid that I can't give you any information about her status at the moment."

"No, that's not what I wanted." I reassured her quickly. "I actually wanted to get any and all medical bills out of the way now, if you don't mind."

She looked surprised. "Are you sure?" She asked me. "Those are going to be pretty expensive."

"Trust me, it's no issue. I just want to make sure that she has nothing to worry about when she gets out of the hospital." I answered her as I started to dig through my purse, looking for my wallet.

She didn't appear to be convinced. "Alright." she said slowly, and I flashed her a grin before giving her my bank information and heading back over to my family. Spencer had moved to sit in one of the hospital chairs with Michael held against his chest, and I moved to sit next to him.

"She's going to be ok, sweetheart." I said, trying to reassure myself as much as I was trying to reassure my husband. "Penny is a fighter - there's no way she's going down without a fight."

That was when Agent Rossi entered the room, with Emily hot on his heels. He seemed like a good man, if not a bit strict. I could have been wrong about that, though - I hadn't had much of a chance to get to know him yet. "What do we know?" he asked.

"Police think it was a botched robbery." Hotch answered.

"Where's Morgan?" Emily asked, and JJ answered.

"He's not answering his cell."

"I'll call him again." Spencer said, handing Michael over to me before pulling out his phone and dialing. I started bouncing around a bit, trying to soothe Michael, who had just woken up.

"What aren't you saying?" Rossi asked, and I stopped what I doing to listen to the answer.

"I spoke to one of the paramedics who brought her in." Hotch said softly. "It doesn't look good."

"They can't give me an update." JJ said as she walked back over. Meanwhile, my husband was hanging up his phone, shaking his head.

"Morgan's phone keeps going straight to voicemail." he said.

"Where the hell is he?" Prentiss asked, but the conversation about Derek Morgan reminded me of something.

"Does anyone know if her date is okay?" I asked, and everyone turned to look at me.

"What date?" Hotch asked.

"Why didn't any of us know about it?" JJ added, sounding a bit hurt.

I rolled my eyes as I explained. "Penny got asked out by some cutie in a coffee shop. She fixed his computer and he asked for her number. She just didn't tell you guys because she was afraid that you would have the same reaction that Morgan did."

"When did you find all this out?" Spencer asked me.

"Yesterday morning when we went out for lunch." I told him. "She was asking for advice on what to do, and I told her to go for it. Screw what high-and-mighty Derek Morgan thinks." I knew it wasn't the nicest thing for me to say, but I couldn't help myself. He had hurt Penelope, and now there was a chance that she could die and he wasn't here.

8888

It was at least another hour before Morgan showed up. I was coming back from the bathroom when I saw him, sitting next to JJ with his head in his hands looking like his entire world had just come crashing down. Up until that point, I had been planning on letting him have it as soon as I saw him. But he looked so depressed already that I could barely stand it, and so I went over and pulled him into a hug.

"She's gonna be okay, Morgan." I reminded him, echoing what I had told my husband hours earlier. "I promise."

That was when someone called out Penelope's name behind us. Both Hotch and Emily responded at the same time.

"The bullet went into her chest and richocheted into her abdomen. She lost a lot of blood. It was touch-and-go for a while, but we were able to repair the injuries."

"So what are you saying?" JJ asked.

"One centimeter over and it would have torn right through her heart." the doctor explained. "Instead, she could actually walk out of here in a couple of days." Sighs of relief were heard all around as he continued. "And I'd say that's a minor miracle. She needs her rest. You can see her in the morning."

"David and I will go to the scene." Hotch said, gathering the team around him. "I think the rest of you should be here when she wakes up. I don't care about protocol. I don't care whether we're working this officially or not. We don't touch any new cases until we find out who did this."

He and Rossi walked away, while the rest of the team and I settled back down in the waiting room, ready for the long night ahead.

8888

Michael and I had to stay out in the waiting room while the team talked with Penelope. Morgan was the first one out, and I watched in confusion as he walked over and punched a wall.

Spencer made a beeline for him. "You need to calm down." he said, and Morgan glared at him.

"Don't tell me how to be."

I walked over, balancing Michael on my hip. "What happened? Did she say?" I asked him, and he shook his head.

"Ariel, what do you remember about Garcia's mystery date?" Morgan asked me, and his face was unusually stern.

"I think she said his name was James… he works as a lawyer, I think. Other than that, not much. Why?"

"Because he was the one who shot her." he answered grimly.

 **A/N~ Thanks to ahowell1993, tlcroft, Momochan77, gossamermouse101, and tannerose5 for their reviews! After this part of the story is over, all that's left is the final chapter for this part of the Ariel & Spencer saga. Don't worry, though - there's still a lot of their story left to tell.**


	31. Penelope part 2

_Michael and I had to stay out in the waiting room while the team talked with Penelope. Morgan was the first one out, and I watched in confusion as he walked over and punched a wall._

 _Spencer made a beeline for him. "You need to calm down." he said, and Morgan glared at him._

" _Don't tell me how to be."_

 _I walked over, balancing Michael on my hip. "What happened? Did she say?" I asked him, and he shook his head._

" _Ariel, what do you remember about Garcia's mystery date?" Morgan asked me, and his face was unusually stern._

" _I think she said his name was James… he works as a lawyer, I think. Other than that, not much. Why?"_

 __" _Because he was the one who shot her." he answered grimly._

8888

 _Ariel's P.O.V._

I looked at my husband in shock for a moment before I managed to process what he actually said.

"Oh my god." I whispered. "This is all my fault."

Morgan looked at me in shock, while Spence just looked resigned. "Ari-bear, this isn't your fault." he said, trying to comfort me.

"Hold up." Morgan said, moving and taking Michael from me - most likely to keep himself from doing something that he'd regret, like punching a hole through a hospital wall. "How is this your fault?"

"She told Garcia that she should go on the date." Spencer explained quietly as I walked a short ways away, running my hand through my hair and then wincing when it got caught on my engagement ring. It took me a minute or two to untangle it, and by the time I had, I had calmed down just slightly.

"So what's the plan?" I asked once I walked back over.

"You're taking Michael home," Morgan said, passing my son back over to me. "While we try and solve this case."

I nearly laughed, and out of the corner of my eye I could see my husband run a hand through his hair, like he tended to do when he was frustrated.

I had to stand on my tiptoes to pat his shaved head. "Very funny, Derek." I said. "I can help."

"Oh yeah?" he scoffed. I knew that normally he wouldn't have been reacting like this, but he was freaking out because it was Penelope who was hurt. "Just what are you gonna do?"

"Just let me know when she's done with the sketch artist, alright?" I told him, before turning on my heel and heading into Penelope's hospital room.

8888

Penny grinned tiredly as soon as she saw us, holding out her arms for Michael. I laid him down gently in her arms, making sure that he wasn't in the way of any medical equipment.

She immediately started fussing over him, something that she did every time that she saw our little boy.

"Hi, Michael!" she said with as much cheerfulness as she could muster, moving so that she could slowly sign along with what she was saying. When Spencer came home and told me that his team had all started to learn sign language, I couldn't help but break down into tears. We were all slowly getting better, although Spencer was still the best out of all of our family. But we knew that by the time he was old enough to actually start talking, everyone would hopefully be at least close to fluent.

"How are you feeling, Penny?" I asked, folding my arms around my waist.

"Sore. Tired." she admitted, before dropping her voice slightly. "Mostly stupid."

"It's not your fault." I told her immediately. "You couldn't have known that something was wrong."

"But I should have." she protested. "I spend most of my time around profilers, sweet pea. How could I have not realized that something was wrong?"

"Because you spend most of your time around profilers." I answered honestly. "And yet you still manage to be trusting, and wonderful, and see the best in everyone. And considering how cynical they can get -" that got a pained laugh out of Penny, which made me feel a little better, "that's pretty impressive." I finished, and she smiled.

"How is it that you always know what to say?" she asked, and I laughed softly.

"I don't know what to say to that, sorry." I teased, trying to get her to laugh for even a second. I figured that that would be the best way to get her mind off of everything that was happening.

"How is this going to end, Ariel?" she asked, and in that moment it was clear just how afraid she was. "I don't want to die."

"Don't worry." I said, trying to be as reassuring as possible. "Do you really think that Derek Morgan is going to let anything else happen to you? Not to mention the rest of the team."

"You're right." she agreed, and I rolled my eyes.

"Of course I'm right." I said, earning myself another laugh.

8888

It was hours before anything new happened - hours spent being bored to tears, worrying about what was going to happen to Penny.

I ended up falling asleep in one of the hospital chairs, only waking up when I felt my husband shake me awake. I sat up quickly, rubbing my eyes clear.

"What's up, killer?" I asked, pushing my hair back out of my face.

"I just thought you'd want to know that Hotch is back with the sketch artist." he told me, and I gave him a quick peck on the lips.

"Thanks." I told him. That was when I heard Michael fussing. I turned to see Emily holding him, bouncing slightly as she tried to get him to calm down. Then he burped, and the look of shock on his face made me laugh. I took him off of Emily, swapping the baby out for a wet wipe to try and clean the spit up off of her shirt. "Sorry, Em." I told her, and she smiled.

"It's no problem, really."

8888

"Do you have the sketch?" I asked Hotch as soon as he left Penny's room, and he gave me a look.

"Morgan says that you can help." he said. "How?"

I knew that I had to phrase the next bit of what I had to say very carefully, or else I could risk my secret getting out. "I work in the music industry, remember?" I asked, and Hotch nodded. "One of the bands that I work with owes me a favor, and they have a huge following on social media. If we post this to their social media site, asking fans in the area for help…"

"We might be able to speed up the process of finding this guy." Hotch finished, giving me a rare smile. "Nice job."

I smiled right back, just glad to be able to help. "Thanks." I told him, then watched as he walked away. I turned around to head home so that I could put Michael down for a nap - his schedule was going to be severely messed up after this - and so I could post the picture on Undiscovered Nemesis' social media accounts. I froze, though, when I saw who was standing in my way.

"Agent Rossi!" I gasped, putting a hand to my chest as if that could stop my racing heart. "You scared me."

He smiled at me, but it didn't reach his eyes completely. "How many times do I have to tell you, kiddo?" he asked me. "Call me Rossi, or David. Either one works."

"Alright." I nodded before squatting down so I could try and wrestle Michael into his carseat. He hated the thing like nothing else, and I always felt so guilty when I put him in it. "What can I do for you?" I asked, once I had finally gotten him strapped in.

"So I had planned to pay for Garcia's medical treatment." he started, and immediately I started to panic slightly, able to see where he was going with this. But years of interviews and live performances had taught me to hide my emotions well.

"Is that so?" I asked as I fished around in the diaper bag for one of Michael's plugs.

He nodded. "Considering that I have more money than I know what to do with -" if it had been anyone else saying that, I most likely would have scoffed and rolled my eyes. But I knew that Rossi was merely stating a fact instead of bragging. "I thought that it would be a good use of my resources." he paused for a moment, giving me a searching look. "Imagine my surprise when I learned that everything had already been paid off - by you."

"Yeah, well, we had the money, and Spencer and I both wanted to help out." I said, trying to brush him off. "I have to go - I promised Hotch that I would get this out to my contacts." I said quickly, trying to steer the conversation in a less dangerous direction. "Plus, Michael really needs to take a nap soon or else things are gonna get ugly."

He gave me another look, but luckily let the subject drop. "Good night, kiddo." he said instead, waving at Michael. He giggled and waved back, making both of us laugh along with him.

Once we were in the elevator, I looked down at my son. "Right then, little man." I told him solemnly. "We've got work to do."

8888

 _Spencer's P.O.V._

We watched the security tapes in confusion as someone seemed to recognize the UnSub, standing up and pulling out their gun before ordering them to freeze. The man pulled out his gun, and I could hear Garcia's gasp. But it took only a few seconds for every agent in the room to be on their feet with their guns drawn and pointed at the UnSub, who quickly realized that he was outgunned, and surrendered.

It was only later that I would learn that the agent who had first noticed the man was a fan of Undiscovered Nemesis. My wife's plan had worked - and had possibly saved at least one life in the process.

8888

We all got back to the BAU just in time to see police leading Jason Battle out of the Bureau in handcuff. The pure hatred in his eyes as he glared at Garcia made me want to punch the man in the face, but I quickly realized that I would have to stop Morgan from doing just that.

I was glad that we had managed to catch the UnSub, but I felt bad that us finding out that he even existed came at the price of her broken heart. However, as I watched Garcia cross the room to where a dark haired man was standing, I had a feeling that something even better was about to begin.

 **A/N~ So this wasn't one of my best chapters ever - sorry about that. Things have been super hectic lately.**

 **Thanks to ahowell1993, tannerose5, Momochan77, gossamermouse101, tlcroft, ripon, and Guest for their reviews!**


	32. The Other Side

_Spencer's P.O.V._

I got home early that morning, around one. The case that we had been on had been in Salt Lake City. It had taken longer than most, and so Hotch had gotten permission from the higher-ups to give us the next day or two off to try and give us a break.

I carefully unlocked the front door of our house, sneaking inside and trying to keep from tripping over anything. I was hoping to keep from waking up Ariel or Michael, but I realized that that wouldn't be necessary when I heard singing from upstairs.

I smiled as I crept up the stairs - I wasn't sure why my wife was awake, let alone singing at one in the morning, but I wasn't complaining.

 _Somewhere in the end we're all insane  
To think that light ahead can save us from this  
Grave that's in the end of all this pain_

She was dancing slowly around the nursery with Michael cradled in her arms, wrapped in the gray and yellow baby blanket that Garcia had knitted when he was first born. I still smiled whenever I saw the inside of the nursery - the guys had finished putting everything together only hours before Ariel and Michael came home from the hospital, but they had done a pretty good job. The walls had been painted dark blue, and little plush versions of the planets sat on a shelf right above Michael's crib. The floors were dark wood, with a fluffy star-covered rug on the floor. There was a rocking chair in the corner that was painted the same white that the crib and changing table/dresser were.

 _In the night ahead there's a light upon this  
House on a hill  
The living, living still_

It was the same song that she had sung all throughout her pregnancy, and was one of the few songs that she chose to sing as a lullaby for Michael.

 _Their intention is to kill and they will, they will  
But the children are doing fine  
I think about them all the time  
Until they drink the wine and they will, they will, they will_

Ariel jumped slightly when I wrapped my arms around her from behind, and I chuckled softly. I leaned over and gave Michael a soft kiss before Ariel put him back in his crib. We left the nursery then, leaving the door cracked and the baby monitor on to make sure that we would hear if Michael woke up.

Finally, my wife turned to look at me. "Hiya killer." she said softly, running her fingers through my hair as she smiled up at me. She studied my face for a moment before asking, "You okay?"

I hummed, just taking a moment to relax as I pulled her close. "Never better." I answered honestly, then opened my eyes as I moved in to kiss her.

We just stayed there for a minute and just when I was about to suggest that we head to the bedroom, Ariel pulled away.

"I finally caved and gave Penelope my address book." she said. "She's going to send out the birth announcements to everyone for us."

I nearly groaned aloud at that thought, but managed to hold it back. That had been something that we had both been anxious to get done, but at the moment it was about the least important thing on my mind. "Good." I said, starting to pull her towards our bedroom. "Now then, its been a week since I've seen you…" I trailed off, but Ariel got my point - she always did.

"Well then, Doctor Reid." she purred. "Lead the way."

As I did just that, a line from a different song popped into my head. It was one that I hadn't heard for a very long time, but I still remembered every word of it. I definitely knew what the line meant - it was something that Ariel and I had done practically since day one.

I hummed it under my breath even as I let Ariel drag me down the hall.

' _Cause every time I ran, I ran to you. I meant it every time I said I loved you._

 **A/N~ We've reached the end, my lovelies. But never fear, because there is much more in store for our intrepid heroes. Like what, you ask? ….I actually don't know, yet - I still haven't written it :). Which brings me to the next order of business - it's going to be a few weeks at least until I start posting the sequel. Sorry, but like I said, I have nothing written so far, and I try and at least have a vague idea of what I'm doing before I start to post stuff.**

 **Thank you to ahowell1993, gossamermouse101, Momochan77, tannerose5, tlcroft, and ripon for their reviews!**


	33. postnote

For all those who have followed/favourited this story:

The sequel is up! It is called _Through the Blood I Tasted Your Lips_ , and is a continuation of what started here. Thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, favourited and/or followed - you are all the heroes to those of us who write.


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